While it is true that (see below) I seem to have little to say these days, I have, happily, been provided with a nice cache of other people's words to get me through the drought. Nothing too back-breaking in the way of ideas and prose style -- all of it suitable for a somewhat sleepy subway ride to work or back, or as an accompaniment to a Saturday morning's coffee and toast.

The only problem: which to finish first? I could continue plowing through a book I picked up quite by accident -- Robert Littell's strangely involving Cold War espionage epic The Company, but after about 400 pages and the transition from brooding, heavy-drinking spooks during the Eisenhower years to cynical, utterly power-mongering conspirators during the Kennedy period, I'm ready for a break (sort of like the emotional exhaustion I felt after James Ellroy's version of the same historical territory.

I'll probably put Littell and his grim Spies-vs.-Spies on hold, because I just got hold of a copy of Alexandra Fuller's Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight. A painfully interesting life, set down with near-perfect pitch. But it's a fast read and I'll be done soon. And though her brief bibliography on African writing reminds me that I want to read this, I've got a backlog right here. Back to the CIA?

Maybe not. After all, this much-ballyhooed piece of historical fiction has been lying around on my desk for months. I've read the first chapter twice, now, and I just can't seem to get into it. Still, I feel I should finish it, right? So...but...

Today I laid hands on an advance copy of this forthcoming book. If you read McManus's riveting hand-by-hand reporting of the World Series of Poker in Harpers', this is the book you've been waiting for. I already cracked it open on the way home from work. Now, how do I make myself go back to the others? God, but I am a faithless tramp of a reader.