In my copious free time I have been reading. It is a skill I picked up a few years back, which seems to have fallen out of fashion. My current stack looks something like this:

The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes
Jaynes posits that consciousness, the “awareness of our awareness of the world” arose as recently as 3000 b.c. A superb book, easy to read, but should be read slowly as the concepts introduced are, well, huge. I became aware of this book through reading Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson.

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
At long last, I am reading Ayn Rand. Oddly enough, I am reading the book because of the intervention of the eviscerated inestimable Bock . I had loaned him my copy of Terry Goodkind’s Faith of the Fallen and, after reading it he said with a snarl, “If I want to read Ayn Rand, I will pick up a book by Ayn Rand.” Though I am but thirty pages into The Fountainhead, I already agree with him.

Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson
Picked it up today. Will be reading it for a while, I think.