Bookish with The Lost Symbol and SuperFreakonomics
Say what you like about gadgets, gizmos, and outdoors equipment- nothing beats curling up in front of the first place with a good book. And we confess that little is less obscure than our first book today- but we like to defy our name every now and then and offer up some suggestions and thoughts on stuff you probably already know about. Of course, the second book is a little less well-known, and if you haven’t read the original, we suggest doing that first.
Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol is perhaps best described as a best-seller. There is little we can cover here that others haven’t already tackled- from errors in geography to the fun grid puzzle. What we should hasten to add though is that you can, in fact, enjoy the book and it’s characters even if you haven’t read anything else by the author. It stands alone, though at the beginning feels quite similar to predecessors. By the end, though, Robert Langdon’s intense 24-hour journey will have led through more than enough windy turns and surprises to distinguish it from most other novels in the genre, and enough to exhaust even the most dedicated reader’s attempts to figure it all out on the first go. The settings are fun, the characters reasonably predictable, the page-turning suspense not so much about who will make it out alive but how it will all tie together. And despite a few too many threads and a couple of strange decisions, it is a satisfying read. If you haven’t already checked it out, bought it, downloaded the audiobook or had it read to you, don’t worry too much- it’ll probably end up a movie in fairly short order. At $15 in hardcover though, the book is a pretty good entertainment bargain.
If it’s something a little more factual and less fictional that you’re looking for, might we suggest SuperFreakonomics. We’re big fans of the first one, which helped bring economic thinking into new realms, and so were thrilled that Stephen Duber and Steven Levitt had compiled a new book with basically more of the same. It doesn’t quite measure up the first one- the research isn’t as original, the writing not as sharp- but it’s still an excellent look at several interesting topics. It’s the sort of book that can translate well into immediate conversation starters, allowing you to engage that cute guy or gal at the bar, or bore your officemates. There’s been more than a bit of controversy over the global warming section of the book, but we heard the authors speak here in San Francisco recently and address the issue head-on- it turns out to have been a tempest in a teapot, much ado over nothing, and other dramatic turns of phrase that basically indicate that a blogger with nothing better to do essentially made stuff up. SuperFreakonomics is a mind-expanding read, well worth the time and $15 or so.
