perfidy

I've been reading some of the books I got with my amazon gift card (thanks, Dad!) and here's a bit of an (brief) update:

• Read the 10,000 year explosion.  I enjoyed this, but when I was done, I wished that these guys had written Michael Hart's Understanding Human History.  The book was very well written, engaging - but except for the section on the intelligence of the Ashkenazi Jews, totally ducked the issues of differing levels of intelligence in different populations.  UHH went after these topics, but the book lacked detail and, frankly, good writing.  A mash up would have been fascinating.  Still, very interesting stuff - I knew that the lactose tolerance gene had originated fairly late, only a few thousand years back - but the scale of recent evolution was way beyond what I had previously thought.  This sort of book really floats my boat.  The evolution of our species is fascinating, and their take on how we might have gotten Neanderthal genes (and only the best ones, at that) and how and how fast beneficial genes spread was enlightening.
• I read Stross' Fuller Memorandum, the third book in the Laundry series.  Short answer: buy it.  If you have any connection to IT, you'll love them.
• Of the other books, I haven't finished any yet.  I'm actively but slowly reading de Soto's Mystery of Capital, de Mesquito's Governing for Prosperity and Vox Day's The Return of the Great Depression.  Reading the three of these concurrently is interesting, there are a lot of connections between the three.  de Soto's book is clear and well presented, but its repetitiveness is a bit annoying.  Still, lots of good stuff.
• I wish I hadn't started all three of those, because I really want to read Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire by Luttwak.  But I don't want to have too many unread books laying around.

[wik] Update: I downloaded Pirenne's Mohammed et Charlemagne, and now I'pm totally sucked in.  I don't think I'll be reading anything else until I'm done with this.