With the move to Canada my reading has been slightly curtailed but here are a few things that I have read over the last few months:

It Must Be Beautiful: Great Equations of Modern Science - Graham Farmelo (Editor)
‘It must be beautiful’ is simply amazing, it takes you through some of the greatest equations in the history of science and provides an insight into what they mean and how they were discovered. The equations cover everything from the depletion of the ozone layer through Einsten’s great equations to theories of information transmission and quantum theory. Some parts are a little hard going if your math skills are a little rusty but it\’s worth the effort of persevering. It also provides a great deal of insight into the people behind these equations which makes the whole thing much more personable and approachable.
Highly recommended.

Odd Thomas - Dean Koontz
Amazingly, I only recently found Dean Koontz and ’Odd Thomas’ was my first of his books. The story is well constructed and keeps you on the edge of your seat all the way through. The characters are well developed and you really care for them by the end of the book. I will be reading more from Mr. Koontz.
Highly Recommended.

The New Solar System - J.Kelly Beatty et al. 4th Edition.
The New Solar System is packed with information on the Earth, other planets, the development of the Solar System and the universe in general. There is a large amount of information contained in it but it may be a little too compact. I found the presentation a little old fashioned and dry. The material is also showing its age a little, with several major recent discoveries not covered - this edition was published in 1999 so an update would correct this and is certainly due.
Recommended, but try to get something more up to date first.

Universe - Freedman and Kaufmann. 7th Edition.
Universe is much bigger than the New Solar System (fittingly!) and covers much more territory. That said the increase in size is not purely down to the extra topics, but rather down to more expansive explanations and examples. The book as a whole is very approachable and the material on the accompanying CD and website is of very high quality.

There are places where the tone gets a little pedantic though. An example of this occurs when discussing angular size and linear size when the text points out that although your thumb held at arms length covers the moon, it isn’t actually as big as the moon. If this text were aimed at very young children that might be appropriate but at the level it is pitched this seems rather over the top and possibly even a little insulting.

Another thing I should point out is that the free software that accompanies the book (Starry Night Backyard Edition and Deep Space Explorer) is very buggy and unreliable. During the install Deep Space Explorer refused point blank to install on my PC claiming I needed QuickTime 3 or above, when in fact I had the latest QuickTime 7 installed. What can I say but Tanstaafl. Note that the book's own supplementary disk does not have these problems though.
Highly Recommended.

The Land That Never Was - David Sinclair
Subtitled ‘The most audacious fraud in history’ this is the story of self-appointed ‘Sir’ Gregor MacGregor, who invented a whole country and sold it to gullible and unsuspecting investors in the 1820s. MacGregor’s story could almost be a blueprint for large scale deception and throws light on just how gullible people can be. Sinclair has made what could have been a dry historical tome into a light and accessible volume that is not only informative but also highly readable.

That MacGregor’s blueprint for the imaginary land of Poyais is seemingly being repeated even more blatantly with the recent fad for the establishment and sale of ‘virtual’ properties only goes to show that we really don’t learn the lessons of history. Possibly the most amazing fact in the whole amazing story is that despite his documented cowardice and desertion of duty, despite getting hundreds of people killed in his fraudulent schemes and despite conning thousands of people out of their savings, when he died he was buried in Venezuela as a national hero and champion of the free.
Highly Recommended.

The Taking - Dean Koontz
After my earlier experience with ‘Odd Thomas’ I was really looking forward to reading some more Koontz and this particular book has been sat around on my shelves patiently waiting for me to get time to read it. Sadly this was an incredibly dissappointing book and completely failed to live up to the standard I’d enjoyed in the previous novel. The characters are wooden and you barely have the slightest sympathy for them, the writing is full of rather awful alliteration, presumably a deliberate act of editing. Surely an editor would question the repeated use of ‘Cedar Sidings’? An even worse example is “their anxious panting painted pale plumes on the glass” - writing for effect is usually the sign of a bankrupt imagination and this turns out to be the case here.

Throughout the story we are reminded how people raised in the days of science fiction and computer graphics don’t believe in biblical or supernatural explanations for things any longer and so when the end comes and delivers its biblical ‘cleansing’ message it comes as absolutely no suprise. This particular climax is telegraphed repeatedly through out the book to such an extent that I barely bothered to read to the inevitable end. A real dissappointment.
Not recommended.