These books are currently on my nightstand.
The Singularity Is Near (When Humans Transcend Biology)
by Ray Kurzweil
Amazon review: Humankind, it runs, is at the threshold of an epoch ("the singularity," a reference to the theoretical limitlessness of exponential expansion) that will see the merging of our biology with the staggering achievements of "GNR" (genetics, nanotechnology and robotics) to create a species of unrecognizably high intelligence, durability, comprehension, memory and so on. The word "unrecognizable" is not chosen lightly: wherever this is heading, it won't look like us. Kurzweil's argument is necessarily twofold: it's not enough to argue that there are virtually no constraints on our capacity; he must also convince readers that such developments are desirable. In essence, he conflates the wholesale transformation of the species with "immortality," for which read a repeal of human limit.
A Knight in Shining Armorby Jude Deveraux (into my 2nd reading)
Amazon review: In 1988 Douglass Montgomery is on holiday with her live-in boyfriend in England. After a huge fight with him and his daughter Douglass is left behind with no money or passport. In grief she goes to the nearby church and cries out that she wishes she had a knight in shining armor. Low and behold Nicholas Stafford, the earl of Thornwyck appears out of sixteenth century England. At first Douglass doesn't believe him that he's from the sixteenth century. She finds his way of dress strange, his talk ridiculous and the fact that he doesn't know what a car is or how to use the bathroom is outrageous! Well, eventually Nicholas wins over Douglass and the two are set to finding out who tried to set Nicholas up for treason in Elizabethian times.
