It's a bit off topic, but on my last trip to the UK, a friend introduced me to Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson - it's an extraordinary work of fiction/history touching on cryptography and many other things, across a period from the Second World War up to the present.
I'd read Neal's Snowcrash (a cyberpunk thriller) many years ago and had really enjoyed it, so I had some idea of what to expect, but found Cryptonomicon even better than hoped for.
This led me to Neal's latest books, the Baroque Cycle - Quicksilver, The Confusion, and The System of the World. Even harder to describe than Crytonomicon, they deal with history around the period 1660-1720, especially the rise of "Natural Philosophy" (science) and the founding of the Royal Society, together with much politics, finance, etc, of the period. Just now, I'm halfway through The Confusion, and wondering how Eliza's complex silver minting operation in London is about to turn out.... Again, extraordinary books, the narrative is simply immense. I've never felt quite the same sensation of surrender to a story as these.
My only complaint is that the last thing I needed in my life over the past few months was almost 4000 pages of wonderful fiction 
Posted by James Dalziel
