Well, if you like history, and having read 1491, I'd recommend Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick.

Pilgrim life in the New World was just the beginning of our 350+ year pilgrimage to our New World Order denouement with all its attendant human foilbles -- religion, clash of cultures, imperative to expand, resource plunder, tragedy & war. Sounds familiar. ;-)

Philbrick's subtitle: A Story of Courage, Community, and War sums up what is likely to be writ of those of us who make it thru the hydra-headed bottleneck ahead.

Best wishes to us all in 2008.

Yes, Mayflower is very good.

On the history topic I just read "Team of Rivals" by Doris Kearns Goodwin. It's about Lincoln and the cabinet he assembled to guide the ship of state through troubling times. It is a fantastic, if long read, and broadened my understanding of the dynamics of the civil war.