I used Awesome WM for 2 years but switched to i3wm 6 months ago:

http://i3wm.org/

The major difference is, Instead of cycling through a list of master column+row layouts per window, one recursively splits the screen using a small set of generic commands. Additionally, the keybinding configuration is a bit more straightforward and declarative.

I'm currently half way through the Malazan Empire series by Steven Erikson.

http://malazan.wikia.com/wiki/Suggested_reading_order

Things I'm enjoying so far:

- impressive imagination, things are so out there

- very expansive world and history and range of characters

- very good at setting up and writing interactions for interesting pairings of characters

- engaging prologues, I always flip back to try and guess what's going on

- started a 10 book fantasy series and actually managed to finish it

- so far has managed to write great endings for every book, even the ones which I felt drag slightly in the middle