50 book challenge: #39, #40, #41, #42, #43.

#39: Lois McMaster Bujold, Cetaganda. Miles travels to Cetaganda, a thoroughly genetically engineered empire consisting of an upper aristocracy, the haut, and a lower warrior aristocracy, the ghem, and manages to foil a treasonous plot to overthrow the empire.

#40: Evelyn Waugh, Scoop. Based on Waugh's experiences covering the 1930s war in Ethiopia. Strangely, the book was more humorous when it was less directed. The more plot-intensive middle was diverting, but not as funny (and not trying to be, I think) as is usual.

#41: Alphonse Daudet, In the Land of Pain. Moral of the story: do not get syphilis when you are 17, if you live in an age before antibiotics. Otherwise, you will suffer treatments like being hung by your jaw from the ceiling (!) and you will end up addicted to morphine, which frankly is probably the best you can hope for. Daudet had two sons: Leon, a writer and anti-dreyfusard anti-semite, and Lucien, an intimate friend of Marcel Proust.

#42: Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion. Much of this book would not seem too out of place on Usenet, and I say that even as a member of his party. Shorter Dawkins: lolxtians pwnd!

#43: Norman, The Design of Everyday Things. A little on the consultant-speak side.