improve upon better acquaintance... Eventually I'll have to do something about that! I meant to say also that I very much emphathise with what Florence says about blogging slowing her down a little. Since I started, I feel I can't move on to a new book till I've got the most recent one out of my system by writing about it - so I'm tending to have a lot of draft posts sitting about! I'm so relieved to find someone experiencing the same thing as me, Karen! I almost didn't admit to this problem, as I felt ashamed to do so in the presence of so many other more assiduous bloggers - I didn't want to be branded as "the lazy blogger"! Another interesting post. Stu's choices were quite thought provoking, but not necessarily books I would choose to read (apart from The Hobbit, which I love), but perhaps I should try to broaden my horizons. Florence's list is much more to my taste. What a great idea this is! I'm here via Stu's blog, one of my absolute favourites in the book blogosphere because he has introduced me to a whole new world of reading in translation. It's lovely to get to know you better, Stu, and fancy you reading The Glass Bead Game as an adolescent, that's a book I recently read about as an influence on the great Gerald Murnane - and I didn't know I could have asked you all about it! Nice to meet you