diff --git a/src/calibre/ebooks/lrf/html/convert_from.py b/src/calibre/ebooks/lrf/html/convert_from.py
index f51be0c948..c8fe27c34a 100644
--- a/src/calibre/ebooks/lrf/html/convert_from.py
+++ b/src/calibre/ebooks/lrf/html/convert_from.py
@@ -1757,7 +1757,7 @@ class HTMLConverter(object, LoggingInterface):
                     try:
                         self.process_table(tag, tag_css)
                     except Exception, err:
-                        self.log_warning(_('An error occurred while processing a table: %s. Ignoring table markup.'), str(err))
+                        self.log_warning(_('An error occurred while processing a table: %s. Ignoring table markup.'), unicode(err))
                         self.log_debug('', exc_info=True)
                         self.log_debug(_('Bad table:\n%s'), str(tag)[:300])
                         self.in_table = False