Anathem was a birthday present last year, and it made the perfect jury duty book. I hauled that thing (1000 or so pages) to the courthouse every day for three days, and sat in that (very nice, airy, light-filled) room with it until it was done. I like big books and even finished all three of Stephenson’s baroque cycle, so I was looking forward to this one. On the other hand, I’ve had my issues with Stephenson, so, you know.

Anyway, the book is pretty much “The Name of the Rose” meets “Idiocracy” meets “The Urth of the New Sun”. It’s got the first’s (more or less) monastery setting and rambling philoso-religious dialogues (which are an excuse for the author, whether Eco or Stephenson, to show off lots of library time), the second’s humorously stupid future (some 3000 years in the future and the masses still walk around wearing sports jerseys and drinking “sugared beverages” from gigantic plastic cups), and the third’s assault of words you don’t understand (in Stephenson’s case, because he made them up; in Wolfe’s, because they are archaic dictionary words no one actually uses any more).

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Now with stars (out of 5)!
*** Rachel Dewoskin - Foreign Babes in Beijing
**** Timothy Mo - Sour Sweet
*** Nordhoff and Hall - Mutiny on the Bounty

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I can’t decide if today’s Comics Curmudgeon is a better takedown of the Family Circus or of Jorge Luis Borges. Either way, hilarity ensues.

 

Norma Field - In the Realm of a Dying Emperor
Philip Pullman, editor - Detective Stories

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John Barnes - Caesar’s Bicycle
May Sarton - I Knew a Phoenix
Iris Murdoch - The Green Knight

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G.G. Fickling - Honey West
Roger Lowenstein - When Genius Failed
Roger Lowenstein - Origins of the Crash

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David Foster Wallace - Consider the Lobster
Gopnik, Meltzoff, & Kuhl - The Scientist in the Crib (again)
Morag Joss - Fearful Symmetry
Akimitsu Takagi - The Informer
Qiu Xiaolong - A Loyal Character Dancer
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Lise Eliot - What's Going On In There?
Michael Lewis - Liar's Poker
Iain M. Banks - Use of Weapons
Henry Chang - Chinatown Beat
Ken MacLeod - Newton's Wake
China Mieville - Perdido Street Station
Patrick O'Brian - Caesar
Patrick O'Brian - Hussein
Jon Fasman - The Geographer's Library

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Elizabeth Moon - Sporting Chance
Alexander Kent - Sloop of War
Siegel & Hartzell - Parenting from the Inside Out
Andrew Martin - The Blackpool Highflyer: A Jim Stringer Mystery
Eiji Yoshikawa - Musashi: The Way of the Samurai

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Neal Stephenson - Cryptonomicon
James Ellroy, editor - The Best American Mystery Stories 2002
Matthew Lewis - The Monk
Gopnik, Meltzoff, & Kuhl - The Scientist in the Crib

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Cryptonomicon is essentially two stories, one set during WWII and one set in modern times (1999), with the earlier story rotating through the viewpoints of multiple characters (bobby shaftoe, lawrence waterhouse, and goto dengo) and the later one focusing on randy waterhouse. I've read it once or twice before and enjoyed it, but this time I'm finding that, though I like most of the WWII story, the modern one just seems pretty bad, occasionally offensively so.

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Harvey Karp - The Happiest Baby on the Block
Jim Piper - Get the Picture? the Movie Lover's Guide to Watching Films
Elizabeth Moon - Hunting Party
John Gottman - Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child
Robin McKinley - Sunshine
Iain Banks - Against a Dark Background
Sloane Crosley - I Was Told There'd Be Cake
Henning Mankell - One Step Behind

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David Foster Wallace hanged himself last night. His wife came home and found him.

I loved his writing, and it's always been fairly obvious it came from a dark place, however hilarious it often was. I don't want to make any grand cliches about the great writer of our generation or whatever, but he could be epic and very very specific at the same time, in a way that is uncommon. I felt like he had a very good handle on what it's like to be alive at this particular moment in history; and so the fact that he chose to no longer be alive now hits especially hard.

Alan Moore - Watchmen
Lawrence Block (editor) - The Best American Mystery Stories 2001
Sam Taylor - The Amnesiac
Michael Chabon - The Yiddish Policemen's Union
David Weber - The Honor of the Queen
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Banana Yoshimoto - Lizard
Elizabeth Kostova - The Historian
Thomas Perry - The Butcher's Boy
Seicho Matsumoto = The Voice and Other Stories

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Apparently the producers of the lord of the rings movies are trying to do asimov's foundation books next. NY Mag provides a handy chart as to why this is doomed to failure.

Anchee Min - Empress Orchid
Brett Dakin - Another Quiet American: Stories of Life in Laos
Anchee Min - Wild Ginger

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Graham Greene - Travels with my Aunt
Dan Simmons - The Rise of Endymion
Patrick O'Brian - The Wine-Dark Sea
Winifred Watson - Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
Alexander Kent - In Gallant Company

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Dan Abnett - The Armour of Contempt
Christopher Ross - Mishima's Sword
Joy Kogawa - Obasan

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Javier Marias - Dark Back of Time
Natsuo Kirino - Grotesque
Henning Mankell - Before the Frost
Miyuki Miyabe - Crossfire
Yiyun Li - A Thousand Years of Good Prayers
Simon Singh - The Code Book
David Weber and Steve White - In Death Ground

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