Book Time: Postsingular by Rudy Rucker

I also recently finished Postsingular by Rudy Rucker (you can read the entirety free online at http://www.rudyrucker.com/postsingular/). I'm not usually a huge Rucker fan, but a book that starts with the Earth being almost completely turned into a giant computer that is simulating earth by rogue nanotechnology has me at "Hello". As in much science fiction, the emotional lives of some of the characters makes them seem as if they're strangely unfamiliar with normal emotional lives, but, hey, read it for the fun of the ideas.

Book Time: The Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuscinski

I just finished The Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuscinski. He was the Africa reporter for the Polish state news service for several decades. It's Africa from very close up; the book isn't so interested in the politics of Africa as it is the daily lives of Africans, and how different the expectations about life are from the Western experience. His prose is so tight and the subject so novel that you want to quote it to people as you read it. Recommended. (Thanks to Marcel for suggesting it.)