I read Drood by Dan Simmons after it was recommended to me by a retired English professor, although he said he felt ambivalent about the book after he read it. I enjoyed it despite the Americanisms that snuck in (it was written in the first person and the narrator is Wilkie Collins the English novelist) and will read some Dickens as a result. It's a tale that goes into the dark, dank underworld or London . . .

After spending three weeks in the American West this summer (the Dakotas, Wyoming and Montana) I'm still utterly bowled over by the place and can't wait to return to the big sky country, but in the meantime I'll have to be satisfied with reading about it and so am just starting on Cormac McCarthy's border trilogy.