In 2.5 hours, I’m leaving work to slog my way up to the Pittsburgh International Airport to pick up a friend, then drag her back down to northern West Virginia.
I anticipate a small amount of waiting time, and fool that I am, I forgot to bring a book.
Knowing that I like comics, mysteries, scifi, fantasy, and humor, recommend a book I might pick up at the local Barnes and Noble to tide me over.
How about Vonnegut’s new book?
Have you read Ilium by Dan Simmons yet? Since the sequel (Olympos) is out, maybe Ilium would still be in stock. SF with lots of humor.
Or Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell – perfect for reading in short bursts.
Ilium, eh? Hmm… intriguing.
So far, I’m enjoying Stephen King’s new book, The Colorado Kid. It’s not a very long one, though.
You really can’t go wrong with one of the Diskworld novels by Terry Pratchett.
I have a pile of them at home, to be read. I know I’ll like them - but don’t want to re-buy one.
Jonathan Lethem’s The Disappointment Artist, a collection of essays detailing his despoiled and turbulent youth and maturation, in which drugs and pop-culture and literary obsessions (The Searchers, Talking Heads, Star Wars, the films of Stanley Kubrick, a certain Marvel comics artist from the 60’s, Edward Dahlberg, Philip K. Dick, an NYC subway station, etc.) have been the means for him to forge an independent identity, to relate to others, including a series of male mentors, and deal with the trauma of losing his mother to cancer when he was 13. While the particulars of his obsessions and personal relationships aren’t universally shared, his ruminations on the nature of fascination and enthusiasm should strike a chord in most of us. The collection is laugh-out-loud funny and poignant by turns, beautifully written, and well-reasoned. The only drawback to it is that it hasn’t come out in paperback yet.
You know, Amazon’s summary of Ilium sure doesn’t sound funny…
Maybe the reviewer didn’t get it. 
It’s not Hiassen funny or Dave Barry funny, but there are chuckles and funny scenes. Almost slapstick, in fact.
OTOH, maybe I wasn’t supposed to laugh at those parts.
10 minutes, folks - my frontrunners are Ilium… Foucault’s Pendulum … and “random SciFi anthology”.
Read Gaiman’s Anansi Boys yet? Loved it.
See if the bookstore has anything by G. K. Chesterton. He wrote humorous mystery stories, some only for fun and others with a deeper and more satiric edge.
I’ve read some Chesterton. Store had no Ilium that I could see… and no Foucault’s - so I bought three Philip K. Dick anthologies.
Have you read Tigana yet?
What’s Tigana?
Amazon link.
I’ve been slowly reading it for many months (my schedule has been kinda crazy, and not offering many chances to indulge in dedicated reading) but it is quite good. A very rich narrative. It is fantasy, with some magic and sorcery, but such things are not the main focus of the book, only a consistent thread.
I just picked up Twisted by Jonathan Kellerman at the Tulsa International Airport last week. If you like mysteries, you can’t go wrong there.
And I agree, Tigana is a wonderful book.