Hmmm ... What to read next?

Reading has really tapered off for me since school began. Between writing here -- which truly gives me a lot of pleasure, fretting about the state of the world -- which gives me no pleasure at all but is inevitable, lots of outside commitments, knitting, putting up the gobs of produce that came out of the community garden, cooking regular meals ... well, reading has gotten relegated to just the few minutes between when I crawl into bed and my eyes slam shut.

I have this stack of books though. It never seems to shrink much. From the public library:

• The Open Road: The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama by Pico Iyer
• The Art of Peace by Morihei Ueshiba

A loan from my friend Mary:

• Silk Road: A Novel of Eighth Century China

A recent acquisition from a used book sale:

• the first three books of the Tuesday Next series by Jasper Fforde

And then there is the brand new book, Nation, by my favorite author, British satirist, Terry Pratchett.

I have also been enjoying two books that might fall into the reference or coffee table book category:

• Beyond the Great Wall: Recipes and Travels in the Other China by Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid
• Japanese Quilt Blocks to Mix and Match by Susan Briscoe (Just what I need: another craft!)

These are both library books as well, but I am thinking of buying them because they're beautiful, inspiring, and fun to peruse.

Dear readers, what would you do?