I loved Foucault's Pendulum, Cryptonomicon, and the Baroque Cycle.

Doesn't everyone? Weird.

Hee -- Slate has commissioned pulp covers for classic novels. They're great!

ummm.. are you sure you are not my DH , corwood?

Lemme check my ID.

EDIT: Hey, Post of the Beast!

Is this the Region, this the Soil, the Clime,
Said then the lost Arch Angel, this the seat
That we must change for Heav'n, this mournful gloom
For that celestial light? Be it so, since hee
Who now is Sovran can dispose and bid
What shall be right: fardest from him is best
Whom reason hath equald, force hath made supream
Above his equals. Farewel happy Fields
Where Joy for ever dwells: Hail horrours, hail
Infernal world, and thou profoundest Hell
Receive thy new Possessor: One who brings
A mind not to be chang'd by Place or Time.
The mind is its own place, and in it self
Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n.
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less then hee
Whom Thunder hath made greater? Here at least
We shall be free; th' Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure, and in my choyce
To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav'n.

Wow, I'd forgotten there were two phrases that have become enduring ones in 10 lines there. Also, I think I've only read that in standardized spelling. "Supream" indeed!

Yeah! I like "Sovran," too.

So I splurged today and bought the new Jacqueline Carey book. Thank God, it was nothing like Banewreaker, which was so boring I didn't even read it twice OR buy the sequel.

I was sucked into it quite happily. It sets up Imriel as a independent character -- lots of internal conflict, but well done. I don't find him as compelling a character as Phedre, but I liked it.

Can't let the whole day go by without this:

STATELY, PLUMP BUCK MULLIGAN CAME FROM THE STAIRHEAD, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him by the mild morning air. He held the bowl aloft and intoned:

--INTROIBO AD ALTARE DEI.

Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called out coarsely:

--Come up, Kinch! Come up, you fearful jesuit!

Solemnly he came forward and mounted the round gunrest. He faced about and blessed gravely thrice the tower, the surrounding land and the awaking mountains. Then, catching sight of Stephen Dedalus, he bent towards him and made rapid crosses in the air, gurgling in his throat and shaking his head. Stephen Dedalus, displeased and sleepy, leaned his arms on the top of the staircase and looked coldly at the shaking gurgling face that blessed him, equine in its length, and at the light untonsured hair, grained and hued like pale oak.

Buck Mulligan peeped an instant under the mirror and then covered the bowl smartly.

--Back to barracks! he said sternly.

He added in a preacher's tone:

--For this, O dearly beloved, is the genuine Christine: body and soul and blood and ouns. Slow music, please. Shut your eyes, gents. One moment. A little trouble about those white corpuscles. Silence, all.

He peered sideways up and gave a long slow whistle of call, then paused awhile in rapt attention, his even white teeth glistening here and there with gold points. Chrysostomos. Two strong shrill whistles answered through the calm.

--Thanks, old chap, he cried briskly. That will do nicely. Switch off the current, will you?

Happy Bloomsday, everyone!

Excellent. I always forget.

And now I need to buy more Harp on the way home tonight.

I'm close to two-thirds of the way through Foucault's Pendulum. Now I am very much seeing why people brought it up in discussing The Da Vinci Code.

Yeah! Except Foucault's Pendulum is satire.