I need a new book

I finally finished Thomas Friedman's From Beirut to Jerusalem today, after creeping through it for more than a month. Contrary to most books that I read in this drip-drop fashion, I thoroughly enjoyed this one. It's just that non-fiction rarely grabs hold of you and takes you whizzing along in the way that great stories tend to do, so it takes longer to read & digest.

In any event, part of what makes this book so great is that it was written in 1988 and thus has a very dated perspective on its topic, which changes very rapidly. I'd like to follow it up (after a suitable interlude) with Friedman's 2002 work, Latitudes and Attitudes. But even that isn't really up to date, since it's pre-Iraq. I guess if I want his current opinion I should read his Times Op-Ed pieces (which I do). Speaking of which, I find David Brooks's editorials to be particularly insightful.

Anyway, I'm glad to have picked up a little history and insight into the nature of the problems we face today in that region as they existed 20 years ago. And now I need a new book to read. Something fun, perhaps.