A couple of hour ago I finished reading Olympos, which exceeded my expectations by a wide margin. The great thing about reading Dan Simmons in general, and this book in particular, is the great sense of the joy of writing which comes out of his work.

Next on the stack, and probably done by morning, is H.P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life, by Michel Houellebecq.

As everyone in the universe knows, the latest Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, went on sale this morning at midnight. I waited until 4:30 in the afternoon to pick up my copy from Argos Books, along with a boxed set of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, Unbeliever by Stephen R. Donaldson, and The Sterile Cukoo, the first book by John Nichols, whose The Milagro Beanfield War I read back in June.

And this should keep me busy for the rest of the weekend, up to Tuesday, when Cormac McCarthy’s newest book, No Country for Old Men, will hit the shelves.

Mmmmmm…books.