Saw a good episode of Jon Stewart last night, where he interviewed Christopher Hitchens about his new book - God is Not Great.
Sadly the New York Public Library, that most excellent of resources, doesn't have it right now.

I love nypl. My local library - well I wouldn't get a book out of it if they were giving them away free. It's tiny, disorganized, with borderline hostile staff. (with one notable exception, a very charming and helpful young woman whom I'm always happy to see, but other than her... well grim is not the word!)

However, being part of the far larger new york public library system means that my miserable little branch can access over a million books. Most sci-fi, an amazing amount of romances (though very little to no erotica. I think they judge the books by their covers. If they are too raunchy, they won't buy them. But the more discrete ones are available.) and usually a very wide range of non-fiction. All it takes is a little patience and you can get almost any book you want. (and remarkably, for a much longer wait, you could get pretty much any DVD as well. But you will wait a couple of months, so you have to factor that in.)

So I was sad that God is not Great is not available. I will put it in my amazon basket (can I say that I am a true amazon believer. As someone who reads mostly genre fiction, I get so irritated with book stores. They have the latest release, which may be number 4 of the series, but not the first book which started it all. Or they have the entire Robert Jordan series (all zillion of them) and no Ursula le Guin. I find it increasingly hard to get the books I want and if they're going to order it in, why, then I'll just go straight to Amazon and order it for myself. Which is what I do. But I digress...) I will put God is not Great in my amazon basket and see if it pops up in nypl in a few weeks, as sometimes can happen or then just bite the bullet and buy it.

I'm currently reading Crystal Soldier, courtesy of nypl, and enjoying it, but not in that insanely passionate way I feel about the earlier series (set far in the future, if that's confusing enough for you) I love the Liaden series which is space opera at it's best.

Edited to add that God is not Great has been found at NYPL. There are 45 copies and 234 reserve holds. I put my hold on yesterday (May 22nd) I'll report back when it arrives. All good things come to those who wait :)