The Last Continent by Terry Pratchett

This book finds Rincewind making his way through FourEcks (EcksEcksEcksEcks), a continent that looks a whole lot like Australia, while on the other side of the Disc, the wizards who sent him there are trying to figure out how to get him back (as the University librarian, who was turned into an ape some time ago, has gone unstable in his shape, and the wizards need to know his name to perform magic on him--a name which only Rincewind has a chance of knowing). But in their search for a geographer to help them find XXXX, they step through a window that takes them to a different place and time, where  they encounter a small god, who keeps banging his head against evolution. This was not one of my favorite Discworld novels (though in all fairness, Pratchett's take on academics is pretty funny)--I think it's because Rincewind has just never clicked with me as a character. But there were definitely some pretty funny moments along the way.

The Complete Poems, 1927-1979 by Elizabeth Bishop

This collection of poetry gives you everything Bishop ever published and more. My main complaint about the edition itself (not the poetry) is that it doesn't provide line numbers. That quibble aside, this collection is fantastic. I particularly enjoyed "Insomnia," "One Art," "Sestina," and "In the Waiting Room" this time around. The beauty of this poetry rests as much in what it doesn't say, and in the task of digging out the pieces. I'm also interested in the way this poetry blurs the line between the surreal and the real and the way in which it portrays nature. Several of these poems definitely make my essential list.

The Shaping of America: A Geographical Perspective on 500 Years of History: Volume IV: Global America (1915-2000) by D. W. Meinig

This volume begins by looking at the changes in technology (like the car and airplane) that changed American life, and then at the migrations within the country. It ends with American "missions"--that is U.S. involvement in the world beyond its borders. It chooses not to go into the changes that happened because of and after September 11. This volume, like the previous three, offers an entertaining and informative geography of the United States and indirectly makes a strong case for the viability of geography as a discipline.

The Shaping of America: A Geographical Perspective on 500 Years of History: Volume III: Transcontinental America (1850-1915) by D. W. Meinig

This volume overlaps slightly with the previous volume; Meinig returns to before the Civil War to cover the geographical history of the West in more detail. Then he shifts his focus to the country as a whole to look at railroads, the economy, the population, and how people were beginning to be united again after the Civil War. He closes by looking at American spheres of influence in the world. As with previous volumes, this book provides a good mixture of specific and general, lots of maps, and a fair amount of history.

The Shaping of America: A Geographical Perspective on 500 Years of History: Volume II: Continental America (1800-1867) by D. W. Meinig

This volume covers the expansion of the United States from a country on the Atlantic seaboard to one that covers the continent. It was clearly organized--first showing how the country acquired the territory, then looking at patterns of settlement, and then covering the Civil War before closing by showing the US in relation to its neighbors. If you're looking for a solid geography that tracks both details and the big picture and which is well-illustrated, you won't be disappointed here. You can get a lot of history from this book, too, although it is not a full replacement for a history.

Vinyl Leaves: Walt Disney World and America by Stephen Fjellman

This book analyzes the cultural work that Walt Disney World does. Why does it appeal to so many people? How does it work with nostalgia? I found the book very entertaining, because I both love Disney and recognize that it works by obscuring relevant things (like history for example). Fjellman describes it as post-modern in the way that different parts of history and geography flow from one part to the other (but modernist in its portrayal of the future--which generally has more to do with the past in Disney). The book is dated (published in 1992)--so lots of the things in it have long since closed, but it was a fascinating read, and made me eager to visit Disney again despite myself.

The Shaping of America: A Geographical Perspective on Five Hundred Years of History, Volume 1: Atlantic America, 1492-1800

This volume presents a geographical history of the areas of the North American continent that are currently part of the United States or are relevant to the way the US turned out the way it did. The book focuses pretty clearly on the US: while it does a great job attending to the many European and African peoples who settled the early US, and differentiating among the Native Americans already here, it has less interest in the rest of the hemisphere (which is not to say that Mexico, Canada, Brazil, and the Caribbean never appear, so much as they aren't the main focus). While this book would not give an adequate history if you were looking for great men or politics, I found it to be an excellent and thorough approach. I'm looking forward to the other volumes, which will take the US through 2000.

Nineteenth-Century Geographies: The Transformation of Space from the Victorian Age to the American Century edited by Helena Michie and Ronald R. Thomas

This collection contains seventeen essays that together make the argument that conceptions of geography changed in the United Kingdom and the United States during the nineteenth century. They analyze cultural products to determine the ways in which people's relations to the spaces and places in which they lived changed. I found the essays, by in large, to be very smart, and the ones by Lipscomb on Cooper and Brady on the Southwest to be particularly helpful.