- Quicksilver by Neil Stephenson (6.1)
- Jefferson's Second Revolution by Susan Dunn (7.3)
- Flashman on the March by George MacDonald Fraser (7.8)
- The Last Assassin by Barry Eisler (7.3)
- Fantasyland by Sam Walker (8.2)
Of the five, The Last Assassin (TLA) was the quickest read and Quicksilver was the slowest. Measuring time in espresso drinks, I was able to finish TLA in the time it took to drink two grande lattes, which isn't a knock, but a credit to the book considering it took sixty venti lattes to complete Quicksilver.
TLA is a great cafe read. Without revealing too much, I was glad to see Eisler's assassin return to his roots and make at least one death look like a result of natural causes, but I was sad to see one of my favorite characters pass away.
Jefferson's Second Revolution focused on the contentious Election of 1800 that pitted John Adams against Thomas Jefferson and resulted in the first peaceful transfer of power in history. I use peaceful in the narrowest sense of the word. Federalists and Republicans, the emerging parties of the day, waged a mighty war of words in the papers and in Congress that shook the very foundation of the Constitution, but they didn't actually kill one another.
I discovered Flashman on the March because Terry Pratchett mentioned that Fraser was one of his favorite authors. I actually read the last book in the series first and recently went back to the beginning. I just finished the first two books in the collection.
The book I most highly recommend is Fantasyland. In 2004, Sam Walker, a sportswriter for the Wall Street Journal, finagled his way into Tout Wars, one of the nation's elite rotisserie baseball leagues. What starts as an experiment soon becomes an obsession. To help him win, he hires a crack research team (including a NASA scientist and a psychic) and travels to ballpark locker rooms around the country to get the inside scoop and encourage "his" players. The book is infused with humor and is a great summer read for anybody who loves baseball.
