Book of the Week: Pashazade, by Jon Courtenay Grimwood
If William Gibson and Casablanca got into a bar fight with Tales from the Arabian Nights, this might be the story bystanders told later on the street about it. It's set in an alternate near-future in which the Ottoman Empire never fell, and now I am very much looking forward to tracking down the next two books about Ashraf Bey, petty gangster turned aristocrat.

Track of the Week: Polyphonic Spree, Light and Day
Watching a video of these guys performing, I'd really, really like to be able to mock them and their dopily-grinning, sweaty-granola, Manson-Family-meets-Mormon-Tabernacle-Choir-meets-a-boatload-of-Ecstasy hippie aesthetic. But you know, after an exhausting week of constantly changing deadlines and deliverables, damned if I don't sort of want to pick up a tambourine and dingle along.