Last night I read "Nacky Patcher and the curse of the dry-land ships" (I believe) and it reminded me, perhaps inevitably, of "Holes". Young Adult book about ships in the desert, full of grim power-mad authorities and flawed people trying to make their lives work. One of the weird things was that both the protagonist and his ... henchman? assistant? had a crippled limb. Maybe that's just symbolic of their similarly crippled mindsets. Anyway, slow start, depressing, but once it got going it was excellent.

Right now I'm working through an *enormous* book about medieval technology. It's full of little gems that probably aren't important to anyone else. Roman ploughs only cut a trough, but medieval ones could actually lift and turn the earth. Why is that important? Because over time, you form serious ridge/valley formations on your fields, allowing farmers to plant on the crest in wet years or in the valley in dry ones, which greatly increased their yields. Stuff like that. Useless (unless I get stranded on a desert island that just happens to have oxen and iron ore) but endlessly fascinating.