The Amber Spyglass, by Philip Pullman. I like the creativity of Pullman’s world-building, which far exceeds what you usually see in fantasy. On the other hand, this book is just slinging around so many concepts that weren’t mentioned in the first two volumes of the trilogy while leaving loose ends from those two parts that it’s rather disconcerting.
I usually read more than one book at once. Right now it’s Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring and Alejandro Jodorowsky’s La danza de la realidad.
Just finished: China Marine by E. B. Sledge.
Just started: Moonheart by Charles de Lint.
MonkeyDancing, Daniel Glick
Who’s Your Caddy?, Rick Reilly
Today, Kangchenjunga the Untrodden Peak, Charles Evans; the story of the first ascent of the world’s third highest mountain.
Yesterday, The Five Love Languages, Gary Chapman. Great stuff.
Day before, Nanga Parbut, Karl Herrligkoffer; account of another first ascent.
Before that, LOTR.
And before that, Touching My Father’s Soul, Jamling Tenzing Norgay.
And always, Bible, New King James version. Best of the lot!
The Warrior Queens Antoina Fraser
“…the paradox, the politics, the legend and the lives of the sovereign women who have led their nations in war.” Not as cheezy as the blurb sounds. Fraser’s histories are wonderfully researched and are always fascinating. I’ve gotten as far as Boadicea’s battles against the Romans
along with
Caesar Against the Celts Ramon Jimenez
Again, as far as Boadicea.
Make that Antonia Fraser.
Nearly finished Moby Dick. Love the way it was written, but I’m finding it really hard to read through the disgusting whale slaughtering passages.
Also nearly done with the Gormenghast trilogy by Mervyn Peake, which is great and is nothing like I imagined it would be.
Next up: The Cider House Rules - yes another Irving fan 
Just finished re-reading Stardust and Coraline and now on Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. I get very sad when I finish a book of his.
Actually any good book makes me sad to finish it, the world doesn’t seem quite as real. Almost like I forget about it for a bit.
Warior Queens is a fascinating book. Lady Fraser is very easy to read and isn’t as gullible, for want of a better word, than many people who write revionistic history. She weighs her sources and reports them fairly and at times sceptically.
Moonheart is one of my all time favorites by Charles de Lint. I just HAVE to visit Ottawa after reading his stuff.
Just finished Last Light by Andy McNab and just started Night Over Water by Ken Follet.
At the moment, I’m reading the newest Rumpole book, Rumpole Rests His Case, with a biography of Jonathan Edwards and Donald Kagan’s newest on The Peloponnesian War on deck.
An enormous stack of Nigella Lawson cookbooks. In the last three days I just finished The Seven Storey Mountain (Thomas Merton), On Prayer (C.S. Lewis), and Shadows Of Ecstacy (Charles Williams).
I’m on one of my occasional reading kicks. Speaking of kicks, reading Shadows gave me the definite desire to kick Charles Williams. I keep trying, mostly because he’s an Inkling, but I really don’t like him. Liked the Lewis book, though, and am in love with Merton.
I dunno what I’ll read next. I’ve got Crime And Punishment. Maybe that.
I just finished Mary, Called Magdalene and am now reading East of Eden.
Sweet Thursday by John Steinbeck
Its the sequal to Cannery Row. I’ve read 1/4 of it so far and its been easy reading as Steinbeck always seems to be.
Halfway through the Al Franken book. I went away this weekend and forgot to take it with me - started going through withdrawl. I agree - great book.
Also just started the Poisonwood Bible. The author escapes me. I’m on chapter two, and so far it hasn’t really grabbed me.
I’m about a quarter into All the Shah’s Men by Stephen Kinzer. Fascinating look at the history behind the Middle East’s animosity towards the west.
I’m about a third into Irvine Welsh’s Porno, the pseudo sequel to Trainspotting and Glue. So far it’s a good read, although I think I prefer Welsh in the short story/novella format. There’s a lot of similarity (and sometimes “borrowing”) between his stories and Roald Dahl’s.
I’ve got several things lined up on the coffee table:
House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski
Gun, With Occasional Music by Jonathan Lethem (I really want to get my hands on his latest, The Fortress of Solitude and I loved Motherless Brooklyn.)
Winter’s Tale by Mark Helprin
The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber
Galileo’s Daughter by Dava Sobel
The Corvette Navy: True Stories From Canada’s Atlantic War by James B. Lamb
Declare, by Tim Powers.
Just read Dan Brown’s “Angels and Demons,” (utterly preposterous, even for a thriller)and “The Da Vinci Code,” (well done, but terribly anti-Catholic, anti-Christian); Franken’s “Lies and the lying liars…” (quite good), “Reading Big Lies,” by Joe Conason. Saner and more literate than Franken. On order, Molly Ivins “Bushwhacked.”
I guess it’s apparent that I am neither a conservative nor a Bush fan.
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. - I’m about two hundred pages in and it’s excellent.