diff --git a/src/calibre/ebooks/conversion/preprocess.py b/src/calibre/ebooks/conversion/preprocess.py
index 33205ce4b2..39ca28e87f 100644
--- a/src/calibre/ebooks/conversion/preprocess.py
+++ b/src/calibre/ebooks/conversion/preprocess.py
@@ -14,7 +14,8 @@ XMLDECL_RE    = re.compile(r'^\s*<[?]xml.*?[?]>')
 SVG_NS       = 'http://www.w3.org/2000/svg'
 XLINK_NS     = 'http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink'
 
-convert_entities = functools.partial(entity_to_unicode, exceptions=['quot', 'apos', 'lt', 'gt', 'amp'])
+convert_entities = functools.partial(entity_to_unicode, exceptions=['quot',
+    'apos', 'lt', 'gt', 'amp', '#60', '#62'])
 _span_pat = re.compile('<span.*?</span>', re.DOTALL|re.IGNORECASE)
 
 
diff --git a/src/calibre/ebooks/oeb/base.py b/src/calibre/ebooks/oeb/base.py
index c988688e22..5ee829c8f4 100644
--- a/src/calibre/ebooks/oeb/base.py
+++ b/src/calibre/ebooks/oeb/base.py
@@ -845,6 +845,7 @@ class Manifest(object):
             if not namespace(data.tag):
                 data.attrib['xmlns'] = XHTML_NS
                 data = etree.tostring(data, encoding=unicode)
+
                 try:
                     data = etree.fromstring(data)
                 except: