You know, if Melville was writing today, I'm betting Moby Dick would be a multi-modal book, with hyperlinks to stuff about whaling and the world of the book.

The Diamond Age is my favorite Stephenson, too. Though I haven't fit Anathem into that list in my head, yet (to even enter the list, a novel must be read at least twice, and I've only read it once thus far), and it has a chance to make it to the top.

My current list is:

1) The Diamond Age
2) Cryptonomicon
3) Snow Crash
4) Zodiac

Quicksilver never made it to the list (I didn't even finish it ONE time, though I intend to someday - I was enjoying it as one enjoys a slog. Much like I'm enjoying Anna Karenina in small bits between other books.)

I would suggest reading Snow Crash next, because it is compulsively readable. Then read the others at will. I honestly couldn't tell you whether you would prefer Cryptonomicon or The Diamond Age without knowing you fairly well.

I loved The Diamond Age. but i have tons of Stephenson I haven't read -- like Anatham

And there's an iPad in The Diamond Age.

I think I need to re-read Moby Dick. Maybe skipping the infodump parts.

I found I appreciated all the whales and whaling stuff much more the second and subsequent readings of Moby Dick. It's like swimming in a grand river of words.

I haven't tackled Anathem yet. There are times in my life when I don't feel up to tackling a doorstop book. I loved Snow Crash, but I should reread it after years online. It is the book in which Stephenson posits that the U.S. does four things better than the rest of the world: movies, music, software and high-speed pizza delivery.

Is now a good time for me to pipe up with how much I hated Cryptonomicon? Hated. I threw it across the room, damaging its shiny, shiny cover. This is where you all gasp because it is shocking to damage a book. And on purpose! Awful! But I hated it that much. Finished it though, because I am a completist, if evidently something of a masochist.
 
Could not bear the race issues.

Everytime I see Anathem I have to remind myself that there is an extra A and it's not Anthem. No one should confuse Neal Stephenson and Ayn Rand.

I love The Diamond Age, but then, everything about the Neo-Vickies would appeal to me.

Oh, I've thrown plenty of books across rooms.

Only its status as a library book protected The Atrocity Archives from similar treatment by me recently. My regret over all the years I remained unaware Charles Stross was writing Chthulhu Mythos stories? Vanished by 20 pages in.