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I ended up in a very different camp, but Rorty's collection of essays "Contingency, Irony and Solidarity" was the second philosophy book I ever read (the first was Marcuse, "One Dimensional Man"). Later on I got stuck into "Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature", which is a pretty serious book, and led me on to people like Stanley Cavell and Daniel Dennett who I would recommend to anyone, continentalists included. I love the late exchange between Rorty and Derrida, at a conference devoted to Derrida and American Pragmatism, where Rorty described Derrida as a sentimentalist who believed in happiness. Derrida, after thanking Rorty for his long interest in and engagement with his work (note: most Derrideans at the time thought Rorty had seriously got Derrida wrong) admitted that "I took my head in my hands" upon hearing this, but on further reflection had to agree: "I *am* very sentimental, and I *do* believe in happiness". Derrida was much happier, I think, with Rorty's reception of him than most Derrideans - in spite of some serious objections, which he also articulated... Rorty was a good guy. Dominic