Ernest Hemingway. Anyway, he's brief. The Sun Also Rises.

An older YA action classic -- YA tends to be brief, and is easy to get into. The Smugglers is a pirate novel, very exciting, by an author I can't remember. Of course, the paperbacks of these go out of print like the world is ending.

One of those popular history volumes out in trade paperback -- I don't know how thick they are, but the one about salt, or Krakatoa, or longitude?

Conventional wisdom for boys you don't know is to give them popular non-fiction.

Susan, I'd suggest something by Gary Paulsen. He writes a lot of YA, slanted for boys, but Winterdance is one of the most hysterically funny things I've ever read. DH laughed so hard he teared up and he almost rolled off the couch. The book has the advantage of being so far outside the experience of southerners as to lend an extra layer of absurdity to the story. Paulsen's other work is readable, but more in the "triumph over adversity" vein for kids. Winterdance is available in TP, which would fit your envelope nicely, I think.

That's a good idea, Katie, and should definitely be available at any B&N.

(ETA--thanks for the other ideas, too. I'll take a list with me.)

Oh, good choice. Paulsen definitely fits into the "older YA action classics" niche. The Hatchet seems perpetually in print, although I didn't like it much. I think Chris Crutcher is in a similar vein/style, although he tends to write issue-novels and very highschool-oriented novels.

I don't know how thick they are, but the one about salt, or Krakatoa, or longitude?

Salt is thick and heavy. Longitude is pretty slender, but I've only seen it in hardback. Cod is slender, I'm reading it paperback now. It's good, but depressing with all the overfishing and its consequences coming up over and over.

But having a little text note alongside the page number - good idea? bad idea?

I like explanatory extra stuff. Gimme the pie chart and the footnote that says what chapter I'm in. I also like page decorations and initial caps, so maybe I just like clutter and verbiage...

I have a copy of Longitude in paperback and took it with me when I visited Cleveland. It seemed appropriate for a travel book and was appealingly tiny and packable.

Pelecanos "Right As Rain" Because he likes urban carrots. I recommend them to everyone, but probably especially men(If he ever reads mysteries)

After browsing B&N, I ended up getting him two magazines (a college football preview and Popular Science) and two books (HHGTTG and Sharpe's Rifles, in a very slim trade paper edition). Tomorrow I'll go to the post office, and we'll find out if my memory of the dimensions of the flat rate envelopes is accurate. With that selection, I figured odds are high he'll like at least one (if nothing else, I know he likes football), and he could easily find takers for anything he doesn't.

if you want to discuss, I'm more than game.

Go ahead-- there can always be whitefont.

I'm most fascinated by the idea of building your whole entire life not only around someone else, but in a deeply pre-destined way. And whether or not it's fair's not the right word, but, desirable. Basically, how much would you want to know before-hand.

On a purely technical note, I'm not sure it'd be possible for there to be any more of them, as Alba would surely loose any baby she was carrying. And it seems kinda selfish to have her, knowing what her life was likely to be like.

Those are the two biggest things that stuck with me. There are other things, but they require more digging though my impressions.