Just picked up Raymond Feist's noew Flight of the Night Hawks

That reminds me. I really need to pick up the 3rd Conclave of Shadows book and finally get to actually reading the trilogy. By the time I'm finished with this, the DarkWar series is probably going to be out in paperback, too. :-| (If I had the time, and I don't, I'd love to re-read all of the books starting with Magician.)

Reading: Schismatrix, by Bruce Sterling

Just finished: Vacuum Flowers, by Micheal Swanwick

Next up: Threats ...and Other Promises, by Vernor Vinge. (Yeah, husband of Joan D. I like his stuff way better than hers, even if she did get the kickass Micheal Whelan cover art.)

Recent excellent read that I would totally reccomend: Rebecca Ore's Becoming Alien trilogy. Becoming Alien, Being Alien, and Human to Human. Also her fantasy novel Slow Funeral is pretty nice.

Also seeking: Accelerando, by Charlie Stross. For some reason it's never in stock at the book store when I go in. I'd order it, but that would be way too much like intelligent action. I read Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise and they just rocked. So has pretty much everything else I've read by him.

"Naked Empire" by Terry Goodkind.  Not a bad series, all things considered.  Not great, mind you (some of the books feel like they're a quarter to half filler, and while easy to read sometimes it feels like Goodkind needs an editor, or someone to say "Okay, see, you just used word X five times in as many sentences.  Find another damn word."), but certainly not at all horrible.

I started the series about six months ago, maybe less, and decided that instead of stopping for books I got during Christmas (re: fantabulous Discworld novels), I'd finish Goodkind's "Sword of Truth" series first.  I just couldn't bring myself to stop when my girlfriend had all of them that'd been released so far.

I should be done the next book (the last one he's released to date) by the time that the latest (and possibly last or second-last) in the series comes out.

After that... DISCWORLD, baby!

Mark Kurlansky - Salt: A World History
Mario Livio - The Golden Ratio
Arthur Herman - To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World
John Kelly - The Great Mortality

For Fiction I'm rereading the first two books in the Prince of Nothing series by R. Scott Bakker. Heavy reading but oh so good. Also been going back through several of Guy Gavriel Kay's books.

Edit: Dadu, I have one on my bookshelf, Mornings on Horseback by David McCullough about TR. I've heard it's good (but then, all his stuff is supposed to be good). As for Churchill, I've never read a biography of the man, but I did greatly enjoy his The Great Republic, a history of America. He really did mean his quip about intending to write history when asked about how he would be remembered. *chuckle*

I just recently finished Snowcrash by Neil Stevenson.

I did love it. It's a lot to think about it, and you can really see people with "Poor Impluse Control" tattoed on their foreheads.

Something Wicked This Way Comes, Ray Bradbury

The first book I've been able to find time to read in a long, long time.

I'd also recommend The Diamond Age as another good Stephenson book.

I read that recently. About halfway through I liked it, and then the clever perfect just-in-time insanely obscure "discoveries" those two make to save the day just got TOO DAMN PERFECT and got my mind churning on the impossibility so much I found it hard to enjoy the novel. That and the "sacred feminine" moral got a little heavy-handed. I didn't think it was horrible, but it could have been better.

SUBTLETY, PEOPLE. UGH. Like how [rambles off-topic] Crash won over Brokeback Mountain at the Oscars. Crash's moral of, "OMG Racism is teh wrong!" was so in your face, whereas Brokeback used a story to let the audience go, "Hmmm... discrimination against homosexuals causes fellow humans, both gay and not, a lot of pain." They both dealt with discrimination and hate, but I feel Brokeback dealt more deftly with it.

Anyways, I'm reading mostly stuff for classes, but I'm going to lie down in a few minutes and read more of "The Unspeakable Crime of Andrea Yates." Mmmm... sensationalism! I've been reading a lot on insane people, mental illnesses, and serial killers as preparation for a novel I'm TRYING to write.