The Big Read

Well I finally finished a book, it only took about 6 months, but I stuck with it. and what a splendid sense of acheivement I now feel.

There was a time I was reading two books a week, but nowadays there just doesn't seem to be the time. Maybe it's the lack of commuting. or the rise in computing. Anyway this was largely excellent, the pop-cultural references, and the significance they have to the adolescent protagonists, and the impact they exert for the rest of their days, are superbly observed. I didn't realise until after I'd finished it that Lethem has a bit of a sci-fi leaning, which explains the rather obtrusive super-hero element that pokes out like an uwanted elbow in the ribs. It reads like an autobiography, and again afterwards I discovered it largely is. Like a Brooklyn based Philip K Dick, without the speed-freak intensity, but with added lyricism.