fascinatingly dull

I've been reading Richardson's Clarissa. I can't say that nothing happens, because a fair amount has happened in these first 80 pages, but it's all the same: Clarissa writing letters to Miss Howe about how her family is set against her, despite her constant virtue. No idea whether I'll stick with it - I've got about 1000 more pages to go. I'm on vacation until 3 September, so anything could happen!

Survey Ship, and other small communities

Last week I went to a used bookstore and bought a Marion Zimmer Bradley book I'd never seen before: Survey Ship. I read it with quite a bit of amusement, because it wasn't very good at all. It's about three men and three women in their first 10 days together on a spaceship. Because it's MZB, the technical details are secondary to the relationships between the characters. These six characters are going to be alone on this ship together for at least nine years, so of course they all jump into quick relationships, with every character getting propositioned at least once. I assumed that Survey Ship was just MZB's attempt to work out the dynamics between men and women that she explored in depth in The Forbidden Tower, so I was amused and chagrined when I looked it up, and realzed that Survey Ship was published three years later.
I finally finished Charlotte Bronte's The Professor, the first in the reading project I started back in January. I had trouble warming up to The Professor, and because I've been so burned out, I didn't want to use my limited mental resources on a book I wasn't excited about. I'll tackle Tom Brown's Schooldays next.
But first (a tip of the hat to the Chenbot and my current obsession, Big Brother 7), I'm going to go finish reading Among the Free, the last in the Shadow Children series by Haddix.