I've been doing this for at least a year now, I use the Firefox Gogole search to get to all web sites. If I'm pretty sure my search will get me directly to the site I type the search into the address/url, Firefox does a "I'm feeling lucky with google" and bingo I'm there.

This is especially handy when I want to wiki things. Type "wiki Kansas Nebraska" into your Firefox address line and bingo the Wikipedia page for the Kansas-Nebraska act shows up.

If I go to Wikipedia and type in "Kansas Nebraska" i get a result page that I have to click through again (that's three page loads vs. one!).

Plus I can never get the address right anymore by guessing. Even the .net in boingboing messes me up, and I should know that one.

I've read all of these books, Neil's request was "if you were giving one away to a friend who had never read anything of mine, what would it be?". I don't see anything in the request to best effect sales.

With that in mind and not looking at the existing results I picked "American Gods", with "Neverwhere" and "Coraline" close. I picked those because I feel that they are the most easily accessible to a new reader.

I have both Interface and The Cobweb, I much prefer The Cobweb. The description of Midwestern life in a college is right out of my memory. I especially like the butcher shop stuff.