Last night I conversed with my sister on many topics. She came over to discuss Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress, which I had lent her, and which had set her head abuzz. (Kress and Le Guin do political fiction so much better than Rand! Unless The Fountainhead, which I have not read, is somehow several orders of magnitude better than Anthem and Atlas Shrugged, both of which I have read.) I recommend Kress's work and haven't read nearly enough of it, as my wishlist attests.

Nandini and I also mentioned our growing distaste for advice columnists. She told me that the new Salon columnist isn't bad, and that she now only reads letters at Slate's "Dear Prudence," not Prudie's responses. What an innovation! This could change my entire advice-column-reading experience paradigm!

Slate recently revealed that Prudie is the daughter of Ann Landers. Nandini voiced doubt that simple heredity gives one advice-giving prowess. I noted that perhaps Prudie is the George W. Bush of advice columnists.