Oct 22 - UVic Bookstore

The Hurt Penguin sale is back (though my spellcheck for a casual misspelling suggested "hurt pension," appropriately enough given the news) at the UVic bookstore, and probably at your local university bookstore as well. It was, I must say, a serious disappointment this time - really, how many books does one need about how to make money about online poker? Still, a couple of choices:

• Ken Follett, World Without End ($8.99, apparently the long-awaited, eagerly anticipated follow-up to his must-read 1989 blockbuster Pillars of the Earth - but for me, only a book club pick, and let me just say: if I have to read a thousand-page book, it better be good competition for the brilliant Neal Stephenson, or I'm calling it a giant waste of my time!)
• William Bryant Logan, Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth ($3.99 - a troubling title, frankly, but I've enjoyed flipping through his Oak: The Frame of Civilization, though I haven't actually read the whole book yet).