Interesting and meme-shaped: the queue

LabRat posted a first approximation of her backlog of books.  What the hell; that sounds fun, and it’s something I can do instead of thinking.  Here’s what I have within arm’s reach of my bedside — books, that is — and which I’m making at least a desultory effort to read:

On the table, top of the stack to bottom-

• Bentley, Ross: Speed Secrets 2.  If I’m gonna spend $40 on F1 2010 and a good $200 or more on other racing sims, I can spend a further $12 to learn how to do it right.  Also the only one of the stack that I”m actively reading.
• Tufte, Virginia: Artful Sentences.  how 2 rite good.
• Marcus Aurelius: Meditations.  If only I’d pay more attention.
• Smiley, Gene: Rethinking the Great Depression.  The first half-finished econobook on the list, it won’t be the last.
• May, Rollo: Power and Innocence.  I don’t know if I even care about this book any more, which doesn’t bode well for the books below it.
• A cable bill.  WTF?
• Cooper, Jeff: Principles of Personal Defense.  I’m a bit embarrassed that this is so deeply buried; maybe it just likes being closer to my kukri.
• Morris, Desmond: Peoplewatching.  Good book to read in bite-sized chunks or larger; shame it got superseded.
• Strachan, Hew: Carl von Clausewitz’s On War.  Strachan’s European Armies and the Conduct of War impressed the hell out of me, so I picked this book up based on the author.  Haven’t gotten much through the biographical information, though.
• Sherman, Nancy: Stoic Warriors. Part of the same interest in stoicism that brought me Meditations; obviously didn’t do quite as well at holding my attention.
• Sowell, Thomas: The Quest for Cosmic Justice.  I love this book, except when I hate it.  Bears signs of having been thrown across the room.  About 80% complete; I should just grind through the OH THOMAS SOWELL NO and finish the damn thing.
• Obviously it’s been a while since I last dusted that table.

On the floor next to the bed, top to bottom-

• Gilbert, Daniel: Stumbling on Happiness.  Reading it on a friend’s recommendation despite the glowing Malcolm Gladwell endorsement on the cover.  Also the only one on the stack getting read at the moment.
• Ridley, Matt: The Rational Optimist.  The second econobook on the list.  I got distracted by the Gilbert book above.
• Various: Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos.  Del Rey tracked down a bunch of seminal Mythos short stories previously published in places like Strange Tales (Sep. 1931) so that I don’t have to.  Comparative advantage: it works, bitches!
• Baum, Kenneth: The Mental Edge: Maximize your Sports Potential.  It seemed like a good idea at the time, and joined the stack when I picked up tennis this summer for the first serious time in a decade.
• Cornwall, Bernard: Sharpe’s Havoc.  I don’t have to explain, do I?  Thought not.
• Hunt, Andy and Thomas, David: The Pragmatic Programmer.  See previous.
• Reinhart, Carmen and Rogoff, Kenneth: This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly.  Needs finishing; I’m just getting started on the last section, covering the 2008 credit crisis.  Got superseded by The Rational Optimist.
• Correia, Larry: Monster Hunter International.  Why the hell haven’t I finished this yet?
• Heinlein, Robert: The Cat Who Walked Through Walls.  Oh look, Heinlein did his own fan-fiction!
• Steil, Benn and Hinds, Manuel: Money, Markets & Sovereignty.  Outstanding book, from what I’ve read of it.  Got superseded by This Time It’s Different.

Of course, those lists don’t include the dozen or so research papers competing for space with the books on the nightstand, but you folks don’t care about those.

Edit: Of course I completely missed the opportunity to joke about how my queue is really a stack.  Does this mean I have to hand in my ACM membership?  D’oh!