diff --git a/src/calibre/ebooks/lrf/html/convert_from.py b/src/calibre/ebooks/lrf/html/convert_from.py
index 29701e1042..b79dbe3bee 100644
--- a/src/calibre/ebooks/lrf/html/convert_from.py
+++ b/src/calibre/ebooks/lrf/html/convert_from.py
@@ -437,7 +437,7 @@ class HTMLConverter(object, LoggingInterface):
         for s in props.split(';'):
             l = s.split(':',1)
             if len(l)==2:
-                key = str(l[0].strip()).lower()
+                key = l[0].strip().lower()
                 val = l[1].strip()
                 prop [key] = val
         return prop
diff --git a/src/calibre/web/feeds/feedparser.py b/src/calibre/web/feeds/feedparser.py
index f2b0ee74e9..a80670555a 100755
--- a/src/calibre/web/feeds/feedparser.py
+++ b/src/calibre/web/feeds/feedparser.py
@@ -1452,7 +1452,7 @@ class _BaseHTMLProcessor(sgmllib.SGMLParser):
         # thanks to Kevin Marks for this breathtaking hack to deal with (valid) high-bit attribute values in UTF-8 feeds
         for key, value in attrs:
             if type(value) != type(u''):
-                value = unicode(value, self.encoding)
+                value = unicode(value, self.encoding, 'replace')
             uattrs.append((unicode(key, self.encoding), value))
         strattrs = u''.join([u' %s="%s"' % (key, value) for key, value in uattrs]).encode(self.encoding)
         if tag in self.elements_no_end_tag: