Trust me: you'll have a hard time putting this down.

Since Microsoft operating systems have graced many of my computers, I naturally gravitated to their other products: Works, Word, Trips & Streets, Encarta, various mice, numerous games, and now Office 2007.

With Vista Ultimate keeping my hot-running PC occupied, the new look to Office 2007 was the big draw for me. But the built-in help wasn't enough.

Enter Plain & Simple Office 2007, a pithy ovierview with three chapters on Word, two on Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook, Publisher and Access one each, and two short bits on integrating the modules and customization.

Just the basics, mind you. Need more on each program? There are P&S editions for all of 'em.

      The Hellenistic Age
I only have a general knowledge of Ancient Greece, sad to say and truth be told. This new work has a good chronological table, genealogies, and a reading guide to others works (and who you can trust) with around 130 pages of very readable text.

      Party Politics in the Age of Caesar
If you've seen the BBC/HBO series, you'll want this book as it explains, in minute detail, the political intrigue of the period. Written in 1949, it's a standard reference that really shouldn't be missing from your bookshelf.

      The Portable Edith Wharton
Scorcese's Age of Innocence did it for me, and I was soon reading her other novels. This book covers many of her short stories, a handful of letters (she wrote thousands), some non-fiction, and has excerpts from three novels, including A of I. There are short commentaries and a chronology by the Editor.

      PowerBook Fan Book
An impulse-buy when first published, I knew a good percentage of what is described within, so I passed it around to my parents for them to understand computers. My mom paged through it once and my dad read it avidly. 'Bout time I read it? (Only covers old G4 systems.)

      The Shakespeare MISCELLANY
I've read most of Shakespeare's works, including a number of sonnets. I've read a good many essays and commentaries about Shakespeare. This little tome, which comes with an old-fashioned cloth bookmark sewn into the binding, covers his life and works and ... and ...

Am I reading too much?

The original series included only the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th books, and I read all three over 30 years ago. I remember bits of the 2nd rather well, hardly anything of the 3rd, and one conversation of the 4th in a completely different way than was written.

Forward the Foundation is an odd duck. Read the description on B&N's site and it appears to be a sequel to Foundation & Earth, while WikiPedia's Foundation entry says it's to be read after Prelude. As you can see by zooming-in, the publisher claims it's the series conclusion.

There are actually a few prequels to Prelude: the I Robot novels. You start with this one, and then Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun, and finally, The Robots of Dawn.

One other describes the early Empire before the Prelude volume, but alas, it's out of print!

So, what's it all about?

Cellular Automata, which has nothing on your cellphone (or "mobile" as they say in Britain). If you've played the computer game of Life you have seen CA in action. You start with a gridwork of cells and alter them according to various rules, which can be simple or very complex. After the rule is applied, you see what comes of it or wait until a good many rules are applied. Each step is called a generation. As the WikiPedia entry suggests, many fields of science benefit from studying CA.

If the name Stephen Wolfram sounds familiar, he is the inventor of Mathematica.

The first uses archaelogical evidence to develop a CGI (computer graphic imagery) reconstruction of the original structure(s) when built; the second describes how Benjamin Franklin negotiated aid for the colonies, despite not having a strong command of French; while the third summarizes all the British monarchs up to the current day.

More to read. More to learn.

Returning home, I soon discovered Tolkien wrote of odd things in an old way and much of the imagery required a bit of thought. Reading became a chore which couldn't be sustained and, after several long months, I put it down. A vague promise to reread by year's end went unfulfilled.

Recently deciding to have another go, 'deja-vu all over again' reflected my situation perfectly: did I stop with Boromir going over the falls or with Eomer arguing with Aragorn?

No matter. Rereading from the beginning has its merits, and now I have a renewed interest in the story and a greater wonderment for Tolkien in general.

I will finish Lord of the Rings this time.

Always, though, I buy new ones. My interests go far beyond just Egypt, Rome, Greece, and Medieval life. I am quite fond of Dickens, Wharton, and Tolkien; Vonnegut and Pynchon hold a special interest; and though I used to rave about Clancy's modern war novels, I'd rather spend time with Bernard Cornwell's Richard Sharpe as he fights gallantly against Napoleon.

Alas, life itself intrudes for too many hours. Oh, to live forever and read everything -- only I'd have to write a book about that, then spend another eternity signing autographs.