Baroque Summer: Where I’m At
Can we all just not apologize for how busy we’ve been and how lax we’ve been about blogging, etc.? Good.
My summer reading project has been Neal Stephenson’s Baroque Cycle trilogy: Quicksilver, The Confusion, and The System of the World. Not only am I on track to finish, but I’m actually a bit ahead! As with Infinite Jest, which I read last summer, this has been an entertaining, involving and educational read, and I’m so glad I’ve finally gotten around to these books.
Stephenson mixes fascinating historical characters like Isaac Newton and Leibniz with fictional ones like the Shaftoe clan and Eliza. The result is a wild ride that succeeds in making things like science, history, finance and philosophy not just understandable, but fun and funny, with some etymology thrown in for good measure, like the origins of the words mob and face.
I chose well when I picked this project and hope to give a better review near the end of this month.
What are you reading now, and what are you reading next? Next for me is Dave Eggers’ Zeitoun.
August 9th, 2010 at 4:23 pm
Oooh, Zeitoun. I think you’re gonna love it. I know I did.
Do you think Quicksilver would make a good read for fall or should I hold off until next summer to start it?
August 9th, 2010 at 7:27 pm
I picked up William Gibson’s classic _Neuromancer_ and now have the next one awaiting my eyes. (Right now, I’m reading a couple business books on Leading Change by Kotter.)
August 10th, 2010 at 2:49 pm
So Audible just informed me via e-mail that the entire UNabridged trilogy is now available. What do you think. Would it be a good listen? I will spending a lot of time in my car this fall …
August 10th, 2010 at 4:57 pm
Inq, I’d give reading it a try before investing in listening to it. I can only begin to imagine how long 2600 pages would take to listen to. Or, you could start with Cryptonomicon, which is only the size of each volume, and I really enjoyed.