You know, if anyone read this site and therefore gave a crap about what I had to say, by this point they would either (a) be really pissed or (b) have abandoned me for people who actually spend a little bit of time on their blogging. And be really pissed. I wish I had a good excuse, but then, that's one of the great things about blogging - you're writing for yourself, so you don't have to apologize to anyone for not writing. If you are so fortunate as to reach a point where a dialogue begins with readers interested in what you have to say, I expect the motivation to write becomes greater. At least, I suspect it does. Having no readers (yeah, and it's my own fault), this is all very speculative.

So, what have I been doing with my time? Well, for one thing, reading. A lot. Among the books I've read in recent months are:

* "Double Fold" by Nicholson Baker - a crank's analysis of why librarians are heartless bastards for destroying beautiful books and replacing them with microfilm. Pure lunacy, but with some really interesting bits about 19th century methods of papermaking (one word, people: mummies) and NASA-like science being used to deacidify old books.

* "The Culture Code" by Clotaire Rapaille - a mixture of malarky and genius that shows how companies can improve their chances in a given marketplace by tapping into a culture's subconscious impressions of a product or experience.

* "The Long Tail" by Chris Anderson - a really good book that clearly shows how the future of business - and culture - is in niches and not mass marketing.

* "The Weather Makers" by Tim Flannery - the first book to make global warning intelligible for me and terrifying in more than a bogeyman sort of way.

* "Blink" and "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell - too good to sully with my postcard critique. Read them.

* "Will in the World" by Stephen Greenblatt - marvelously entertaining speculative biography of Shakespeare.

* "On Killing" by Dave Grossman - ultimately too repetitive and thus boring. But in the main, a compelling explanation of why people aren't really inclined towards killing each other, and what the U.S. military has done to help them overcome that resistance.

There've been others, but these are the high points. Right now, I'm reading Paul William Roberts' "Homeland", which is a polemic pretending to be a novel, with only minimal efforts at characterization and written in cliches and stock scenes. It's been a grave disappointment considering how much I enjoyed "The Palace of Fears", his previous novel, but I intend to see it through to the end in the hope of some late chapter redemption. Should he falter, there will likely be no Roberts in my future.

Next up: "Crowds and Power" by Elias Canetti. Or else I may tackle the new Pynchon, about which I have heard nothing. Either way, just a little light reading over Xmas.