I was reading this as it is October's Bookclub selection.
This was an easy enough read and was quite entertaining. There's lots of wordplay, which is fun. But I have trouble with the ideas of life after death. More importantly, I am sure that the book is full of metaphors and references which were quite wasted on me. Maybe I'm just not intellectual enough and should stick to more "straight" writing.
Lots of the little facts and references are interesting. For example, the word ghetto comes from the Italian borghetto, which means suburb - very telling.
I am, as always, infuriated by inaccuracies, which I see as damaging to an author's integrity. Here are a couple:
A reference to the John Hancock Center in Boston. I have been to Boston a few times and I have visited the John Hancock Center, but that was during a visit to Chicago. Wrong city.
There is a reference to "Chips drenched in ascorbic acid". This is rather unlikely, as ascorbic acid is vitamin C. Did he mean ascetic acid [i.e. vinegar]? That would make a bit more sense.
I could check these facts in moments; why couldn't the author. Or, again, is this a joke too subtle for me to understand?
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