Not really keeping up with this on a daily basis like I'd planned -- what a surprise. Here's a reading summary of the past few days:

Try and Stop Me, from the 40's (during the war) by Bennett Cerf. Interesting book of a type you don't see any more. I can remember reading pieces of it at my grandmother's house as a child (along with a compliation of humor from the Reader's Digest called Fun Fare.) I think both books had a great influence on me, which is odd at best. Anyway, I'm up on my gossip about literary and musical figures from the 30s. I think it fascinates me as a piece of cultural history more than anything -- It's fascinating to see what has and hasn't changed since before WWII.

Finished listening to another Judge Dee, Murder in the Monastery. Very good.

Started The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Seems like it will be good, but I'm still pretty early in it.

Checked out Moby Dick on tape from the library. I've read about 2/3's of the way through the book before and enjoyed it (in a slogging kind of way...) I enjoyed Melville's short work very much, especially Typee and Bartleby.

Sue bought be a book of essays by NPR's TV critic called something like The 60 Most Influential TV Shows. I'm reading it in the can. Not bad.

A good article in this week's New Yorker about a lawyer who fights counterfeiters using the civil courts.

A decent short-story in an SF collection from the early 90's called Slow Birds or something like that.

Bought H.G. Wells's Outline of History, so now I'm slogging through it. I'm still in the pre-human sections, most of which underwent significant posthoumous updating. I'm about at the Neanderthals. Good stuff in small doses.

More Quicksilver tonight.

Finished Peckham's Marbles. Meh. I liked the feel of DeVries, but I got the impression that this was a weak effort from late in his career.

Started a new Van Gulick, Murder in Canton. I love Judge Dee.

The Cochrane book is still my car/lunch read. Quicksilver is my primary bed read.

I've got a new New Yorker that I haven't touched yet.

Yesterday: Only thing I read was Quicksilver

Today: Cochrane at lunch, DeVries in the car. A New Yorker article in the can. More Quicksilver in a few minutes when I head up to bed.

Re-reading The Baroque Cycle and read a few pages after the alarm went off this morning.

In the can: Read John McPhee's article on chalk in the latest New Yorker.

In the car: Finished a Judge Dee novel The Willow Pattern yesterday. Started Peter DeVries Peckham's Marbles. My first DeVries. Like it ok so far, despite some technical tape issue (jeez, just issue 6 tapes, don't make my fuck with the balance control!) DeVries seems to aspire to be the American Wodehouse. Good for him. Reminds me a little of Perelman too, and his tipped his hat at old Sid in this book.

Before bed: will probably go back to Quicksilver. Man I love Stephenson. About the only thing I can compare him to is Tolkein -- not in terms of style, but in terms of depth of detail and breadth of focus. I hope that he someday connects the cycle to Crypto...