I've been listening to 1984 on audiobook and I'm almost finished. I should be done with it tomorrow. The most interesting part was the sections where Winston was reading from The Book. Not only did it remind me of a Karl Rove strategy, but, quite frankly, of just about any religion at its darkest. Obviously, cults in particular take such strategies to heart, but is there really that much difference between little cults and really bigs ones that go out of their way to ensure obedience to their dogma?

I also received last week my unabridged audiobook of the Bible. Now, I should acknowledge that while I knew the Bible was really long--I mean, it's always printed on such thin paper with such small print--but I never really realized how long it was. The New Testament is on 14 disks (and yes, it's read by Darth Vader... James Earl Jones! I hope that image keeps me sane while I listen!), while The God Delusion was only on 10 or 12 disks. But then add to that another 46 disks for the Old Testament. There is like 60 hours of audio. Even with my crazy commuting right now, that will take three weeks to finish listening to.

I think I may hang on to it to listen to it last, though. If I listen to it an hour a day, I can finish it in two months, so I might save it for afterwards. It's probably easier to break up than other books that might expect me to have a train of thought and follow a certain logic.

I ordered a few more titles, and I'll talk about those when I get through them, but I think I'm done ordering for the summer. Next up on my list to listen to is Christopher Hitchens' God is Not Great. And sometime soon, I have to make a hotel reservation for that AAI conference. :(