text: Turn of the century continues to serve a most useful purpose, months after I gave up on it. I have a door that rattles if it's not wedged open and T-o-C is just big enough and heavy enough to do the job on its own. I struggled, oh how I struggled to try and even begin to understand some of the characters. I stirred the pages wildly while I waited for the plot to thicken. I fought against closing eyelids while the book became heavier and heavier. I searched my abridged guide to good grammar to see if I had missed a couple of chapters explaining that sentences after all don't need a subject, a verb and an object - or even a permutation of two out of three. I left it on the front doorstep hoping somebody would steal it. I offered it to my  neighbor so he could jack up his car. I considered lighting the fire with it. I wondered whether, if I took just a few pages a day, I could eat it and get rid of the evidence. I offered it to my mother-in-law for Christmas. I took it scuba diving with me instead of a weight belt. And then, eventually, voila! The rattling door! What a fine tome T-o-C is. Another few hundred pages [...] and I could have used it as a sea anchor for the Titanic
  