Oxford and work

(Just using this icon cos I'm allowed to now. Nothing whatsoever to do with the content of the post ;-)

Normally when going into town by bus, I get off at the top of the High Street and walk along ugly, pedestrianised, shop-lined Cornmarket. Yesterday, inspired partly by giving Oxford tourist advice to typomatic, and partly by spending the weekend in another beautiful medieval city (Dijon), I got off the bus at the other end of the High, and walked along Queens Lane, one of my favourite parts of Oxford. It's one of the least modern parts: ignore the yellow lines painted on the road, and you can project yourself back to the historical period of your choice, before emerging back into 21st century Oxford to do my shopping on sunny Broad Street. I love living in this city.

On a rather more modern note, is it a good sign or a bad one that the stuff I'm doing at work today is very similar to the stuff I was doing at home, for fun, last night?

Books, lovely books

What I did read on my holidays

Damnit. I want to describe each of these books as 'marvellous', because they each were, in their various different ways.

( Life of Pi, by Yann Martel )

( Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson )

( Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides )

( Mister Monday by Garth Nix )

What should I read now? Recent experience suggests I should state that I'm more interested in characters than plot (if I had to choose), and in case it's not clear enough already, I loved all four of the books I talk about above. Anyone got any recs?