More Mundane Meanderings.

I'm a sucker. I signed up for Amazon Prime, the "all you can eat" shipping option offered by Amazon.com. For $80 or so per year, you get free second-day shipping on any item that's normally elligible for Super Saver Shipping (free, but slow, shipping on orders over $25). Amazon Prime has greatly reduced the resistance I've had to ordering something that seems interersting. Previously, I'd never order something if I didn't have enough items to qualify for Super Saver Shipping, so a $5 book would not be an impulse buy. Now, however, is a bit different. I have a lengthy queue of books waiting to be read as a result of my Prime membership. Here is what's in my "To Read" pile:

	The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. & E.B. White Not wanting to contribute to the ever-declining state of grammar, spelling, and general writing quality on the internet, I thought this book would be a nice addition to my collection.
	Principles of Statistics by M.G. Bulmer I managed to make it through college without taking a true statistics course and still ended up with a B.S. and M.S. in Computer Science. I ordered this page-turner to fill in a few holes.
	Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell Ms. Vowell provided the voice of Violet in The Incredibles and had a segment on the DVD extras showing off her history-geekiness. Seeing that piqued my interest enough that I bought this when it showed up in my Amazon recommendations.
	Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling I've read the rest, so I had to get this one.
	Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi I've been reading Mr. Scalzi's blog for a while now, so when I saw a recent post about how the print run of this book was limited and that 10% of the cover price goes to the Child's Play charity, I used an Amazon gift certificate I had sitting around to buy this book. My book is #526 of the 1500 numbered copies, all of which have been autographed by the author.
	Accelerando by Charles Stross In another of John Scalzi's blog posts, The Myth of the Science Fiction Monoculture, he says, "I think [Accelerando] is just a tremendous science fiction novel, full of the things that make you go hmmm, science fictionally speaking. They might as well just announce Charlie's Hugo nomination for it so the rest of us can go about our lives." Since my aforementioned gift certificate had a bit left on it after Agent to the Stars, I added Accelerando to my order.