Between Silk and Cyanide, Leo Marks
An entertaining, moving, and convincing memoir of one young man's service in WWII as a British codebreaker.

The Privilege of the Sword, Ellen Kushner
Entertaining return to Ellen Kushner's swashbuckling fantasy world, if a bit light compared to my memory of Swordspoint.

In the Ocean of Night, Across the Sea of Suns, Great Sky River, Tides of Light, Furious Gulf, Sailing Bright Eternity, Gregory Benford
In six books written over 20 years, Gregory Benford tells an epic saga, beginning with near-future astronauts and humanity's first encounters with other species and ending with an exceedingly prolonged anti-climax in a clot of space-time orbiting the black hole at the middle of the galaxy. The backstory to all of this is the eternal clash between biological and mechanical life. Benford goes in the general direction of amazing and spectacular Epicness; although his writing improves substantially from the first books with their painful seventies sci-fi-isms, it never really gains the power to fulfill and sustain his vision. Read the third and fourth books and leave the rest.

Mortal Games, Fred Waitzkin
An account of the times journalist Fred Waitzkin spends around Kasparov before, during, and after his 1990 match with Karpov. Readable and interesting, although Waitzkin's style puts him far too much into the story.

Three Days to Never, Tim Powers
I'm always eager to read a new Tim Powers book, but this one sadly disappointed.

Rainbow's End, Vernor Vinge
Vernor Vinge's theory of the Singularity says that the increasing pace of technological change will rapidly render civilization unrecognizable. It's been quite a challenge for him to write science fiction while staying true to this belief. In this entertaining trifle, he tries to peek into the near future of computer-enhanced school kids, whose classrooms include older people back for retraining or even back from Alzheimer's.

1635: Cannon Law, Eric Flint and Andrew Dennis
Flint churns out another entertaining, thought-provoking, pedestrian-prosed novel in the Ring of Fire alternate universe (in which a small West Virginia mining town is transported to 1632 Germany).

Nightwatch, Sergey Lukyanenko
A very Russian take on vampires and good versus evil, with plenty of bureaucracy, dark humor, fate, and vodka. This English translation presents three original novels in one big but not huge book. Entertaining but not great.

One Night at the Call Center
A wretchedly earnest and painfully poorly written story of malcontents at an Indian call center.

Insofar as a member of Congress taking an oath to serve America and uphold its values is concerned, America is interested in only one book, the Bible. If you are incapable of taking an oath on that book, don't serve in Congress. — Dennis Prager, Townhall.com, 28 Nov 2006

Regarding your editorial suggesting that I am "demanding that the entire nation follow one particular theology" ("Fear and Bigotry in Congress," Dec. 23), I have never even hinted at such a thing. ... I have suggested that Mr. Ellison bring a Bible along with his Koran to his ceremonial swearing-in — not to swear on it but to honor it.... — Dennis Prager, New York Times Letters, 1 Jan 2007