Lisa Simpson: "My only friends are grown-up nerds like Gore Vidal.  And even he's kissed more boys than I have."

Marge Simpson: "Girls, Lisa!  Boys kiss girls."

  My book of choice for this rainy, gray and lazy week on Cape Cod is The Smithsonian Institution by Gore Vidal.  It's a historical science-fiction about a preternaturally precocious 12-year-old math genius who is called to the Smithsonian Institution on the eve of WWII.  There he finds a historical funhouse where the laws of time and space are completely warped and figures from throughout America's past mingle and try to effect the course of our future.  It's a bit like the film Russian Ark, but utterly American and Vidalian (nothing to do with onions), with tons of sly, knowing, campy jokes and a sense of total irreverence.  I once made fun of Genevieve for being engrossed in Vidal's Burr while we were on Halong Bay in Viet Nam (see:  http://gneexcellentadventure.blogspot.com/2005/03/g-doesnt-allow-all-scenery-to-distract.html), but now I understand.  It's nerdy fun even Lisa Simpson would enjoy.