Listened to Bill Bryson reading In a Sunburned Country as I drove. I enjoyed it. I didn't enjoy it as much as I enjoyed his other books, though, which I felt had more to do with his Australia than with his writing skills. I think what I like most about Bill Bryson is the way he goes off and does something and then writes about it. What I enjoy less is a Bryson potted tour through what other people said about things and places, followed by a very hasty comment on what happened to him when he went there. And Sunburned Country felt almost as if Bryson's visit to Australia was an afterthought, an appendix to the real book, which was his own literary history and geography of the continent.
Also listened to Basil Rathbone and Vincent Price reading Poe in the Edgar Allan Poe Audio Collection. Wonderful stuff. Rathbone was a surprise -- and he gets the lion's share of the good stuff.
Drank about a dozen different kinds of 'energy drinks' as I drove. Red Bull was the only one which wasn't sickly and unpleasant.
Oh, changing the subject, the following was waiting for me from my agents when I got back -- for those of you not in the USA and who have asked, it's the current list of which publishers around the world have already bought the rights to American Gods:
Serbia: Laguna
Spain: Norma
Brazil: Conrad
Holland: Luitingh-Sijthoff
Germany: Heyne
Czech Republic: Polaris
France: Au Diable Vauvert
Turkey: Altin
Poland: Mag
Finland: Otava
Italy: Mondadori
Israel: Opus
Russia: AST