I'm 191st on the list in Seattle. :) What can I say? We're a literate town, that likes to use the online catalog.
Yeah, I'm something like 165 for the third Dragon Tattoo book.
I actually have Suzanne Collins as a saved search so I can obsessively check the catalog because I do not want to have to wait for that one.
It's neat trying to figure out what makes an infodump tangent a slog vs a fascinating digression - in Les Miserables I love the Paris sewer system chapter but have yet to get through Waterloo.
I was just talking with someone this week about how they wanted to read Les Mis but it was so intimidating because of its length. The first thing I said was, well, you can skip the whole Waterloo section.
Anathem was one of my favorite books of the last decade,
I need to re-read that. And read some more Stephenson.
Anathem
was the first thing of his that I read -- any recommendations as to what I should tackle next?
Snow Crash
or
Cryptonomicon
?
Un-Stephenson-y, I just yesterday found out that Anne Lamott has a new book out, which is a sequel to
Crooked Little Heart
. I ordered it at 3:00 p.m. yesterday from Amazon, and it was delivered at 12:30 today. I did NOT select one-day shipping. It was a weird Zappos moment. But -- new book, woot!!!
I'd say Snow Crash to get the flavor of his early work.
I vote Snow Crash 'cause I loved it tons. Cryptonomicon was good but I liked Snow Crash better. Although if you liked Anathem, you might like Cryptonomicon better. It's win-win frankly. I didn't like The Diamond Age as much but it was the 4th or 5th Stephenson book I'd read in a row and it could have just been fatigue.
Dawn! Did you read Skulduggery yet???
I didn't like The Diamond Age as much but it was the 4th or 5th Stephenson book I'd read in a row and it could have just been fatigue.
It was probably because The Diamond Age is unbelievably boring.
NO!!!! The youngest has left it in his locker at SCHOOL! I told him if he didn't bring it home today, he was going to be grounded (I was only half kidding - almost 14 year old boys are a trial!). It's killing me. I am rereading Good Omens for the millionth time instead.
It was probably because The Diamond Age is unbelievably boring.
I am the Anti-Jess in this. Diamond Age is my favorite of his works.
It was probably because The Diamond Age is unbelievably boring.
Jess, thanks! I always thought it was me that didn't "get" it.
I love The Diamond Age!
I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, though, because I know my love for it is not shared by many.
It's hard to recommend a follow-up to Anathem at all, since Anathem is just the best thing Stephenson's done. Snow Crash is a good choice. I'd be interested to know how it reads to someone who has read other Stephenson, actually; a big part of my enjoyment of it was how different it was from anything else I'd read up to that point.
