You'll love Methland, then, because all of those things are intimately connected with meth's rise.

Then it's on my Christmas reading list.

Along with A Christmas Carol. I've never actually read that.

I'm interested in your take on His Dark Materials series.

I've never read them. I don't read fantasy at all. The last fantasy I read was by assignment in 8th grade. Only rarely do I even watch a fantasy or sci-fi movie.

My understanding of them is that they're unapologetically anti-organized religion. My own feelings on that, as I'm sure you know, are to the contrary.

If I was going to read a fantasy series, I'd probably skip Pullman and start with Tolkien or Lewis. I do enjoy C.S. Lewis' religious works, especially The Great Divorce.

Well, that's precisely why I'd like to hear your thought on it. The story itself is pretty good without the backing of everything else (philosophy, religious implication, etc)

Heh. You are hot on the YA trends these days. Book Thief is awesome. Since you know YA Lit, you might or might not have heard of Chris Crutcher (wrote Whale Talk, the Sledding Hill, Staying Fat for Sarah Burns, Deadline, etc.. etc..If you haven't read him, check him out). Anyway, I got to spend last weekend hanging out with him at a conference, and I do mean hanging out. Friend of a friend, so we were out pretty late night at the bars. Great guy. Lots of fun.

Well, I've found that YA happen to deal with better premises and explore much more mature things than most adult fiction. Hence, my attraction.

You should have requested a place in his next book. ;)

Haha. Hilarious story about that. Some Nebraska fan got into correspodence with him. They placed a bet when WSU was playing Nebraska. The guy said that if Nebraska won, Crutcher had to put him in his next book. Needless to say, Nebraska destroyed WSU. Crutcher called the guy and said, "Alright, you won. Do you want to be a truck stop hooker or a one-legged tranvestite?"

ROFL

The guy actually ended up being the coach in Whale Talk.

ROFL

Solid. Makes me wanna read him just based on that.

He's a solid writer. Worked in abuse and neglect therapy in Oakland for years and saw some pretty heavy shit. Alot of those stories make it into his work (which is actually pretty funny, but can also be heart breaking). If you ever get a chance to hear him speak, do it. He's an amazing speaker and storyteller. He's also a fierce, fierce free speech advocate. His books tend to get banned a lot, so he does a lot of advocacy work on behalf of banned books.

not really high brow, but going through the dresden files again (jim butcher)--brilliant prose.

I've got a copy of that signed by the author but I haven't read it yet. Its probably next up on my docket.

i just started it. very good so far.

The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins