In terms of reading--I really enjoyed Peter Hamilton's thick novel The Reality Dysfunction and the sequel The Neutronium Alchemist--they are hard science fiction with modest character development.  I read the third in the trilogy The Naked God and loved it.  Enough to buy it hardback (and then pass it around to friends.  I also liked Stephen Baxter's Ring and Time Ships.   Recent reading includes Cryptonomicon. 

I have been reading An Introduction to the Bootstrap but I would not recommend it to the non-math geek crowd.   My October  2000 reading was J.V. Jones Book of Words series.  David Farland's The RuneLords was another recent read that I would recommend.

Over Christmas 2000, I read Me Look Pretty by David Sedaris and The Kid by Dan Savage.  I would recommend these to everyone.   Right now I am reading a book on European History between 1789 and 1848.  Non fiction needs to be in the mix every once in an while. 

I also like the Terry Goodkind books and Douglas Coupland's Generation X, Shampoo Planet, and Microserfs.  Beyond the gay character, Microserfs hit way too close to home.  For those of you familiar with the book, I pulled two bottles of Robitussin out of my desk after reading it, then met with my boss and we discussed having an office setup in his garage in the Bay Area.