»I prefer men to cauliflowers.

Began reading the much-acclaimed novel The Hours. I was lost by the second word ("hurries") in the Prologue; I've a prejudice against fiction written in the present tense. It's difficult to accomplish, because the immediacy it conveys is muted or contradicted by the fact that the action is obviously in the past (the Prologue describes a death; the second chapter helpfully declares "It is Los Angeles. It is 1949." within a few sentences).

I hoped that Michael Cunningham would abandon the conceit after the Prologue, for which I could have forgiven him. I have read, quite recently, a novel which pulled off the present-tense quite surprisingly, but now I can't remember which.