Read Recently
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Democracy, the internet, and the overthrow of everything by Joe Trippi
Trippi is a technophilic political activist (I can't think of a better word right now--he goes out and works on/runs campaigns for American candidates--in his day job, he owns an ad agency) who worked on the Dean campaign. This book is his love letter--not to Dean, though like so many people he still seems to believe in him, but to the people who made the campaign, in Trippi's view, unprecendented: the believers out in internetland. Trippi believes that the Internet will recreate American politics, revitalizing Democracy. I, for one, would love to believe that he was right.
Recommended.
His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik
If Anne McCaffery had written Master and Commander, it would be this book.
It is the Napoleonic Era, and Captain William Laurence has just defeated a French ship in battle. In the hold of the ship they discover a Dragon Egg. This is not as surprising as it might be in our history, but it is bad news. The egg is due to hatch soon, and the ships are weeks from the closest British port. Can anyone in the crew harness the hatchling? Certainly none of the officers want to, but the Air Corps is short of numbers and no gentleman could fail to do his duty (only a gentleman can do this duty; none of the belowdecks crew are offered a chance) and whomever the dragon picks will have to transfer to the Corps immediately. Of course, the dragon chooses Will, and he names it Temeraire, after a ship.
Problems come up immediately; the Navy doesn't want to lose Will, and he doesn't want to go. But he comes to care for Temeraire over the time it takes them to get to port, and when given the chance to release the dragon to another handler he chooses not to. Another problem is Temeraire's breed, which is unknown; the best expert in England can only tell them that Temeraire is a Chinese breed ("The Chinese had been breeding dragons for thousands of years before the Romans had ever domesticated the wild breeds of Europe" gets my vote for best line in the book).
Will and Temeraire begin training, and Will at first has a hard time fitting into the less regimented world of the Air Corps. But just as they are finding their place, they are sent to Dover to join an active squadron. And Napoleon has a big surprise planned . . . Whether Temeraire's surprising new ability at the end of the battle counts as a Dragon Ex Machina is an exercise I leave to the reader.
Highly recommended.