Anathem

I finished listening to Anathem by Neal Stephenson yesterday and I didn't post about it right away because I was giving myself time to think about it. I didn't want to be too hasty in my praise, but after at least twenty-four hours I can still say that I loved it.

It was about 29 hours of audio book and it took me about three weeks. While part of me wishes I had more to listen to, actually, I'm very satisfied with the resolution. I don't want to say much about the plot because it would take a lot of time for me to feel like I'd explained it in a satisfactory way, and because I went into the book knowing almost nothing about it and I liked it that way. I will say that it's from the point of view of a teenage boy (17-20 over the course of the book) who has grown up in a intellectual monastery (which is to say, the focus of their abstinence from culture is pursuit of knowledge, not faith). The conflict/agreement of faith/knowledge play into the book, but are not a primary focus.

I told Adam I don't think I would have enjoyed it as much if I had read it instead of listened to it, mostly because of the large number of invented words/terms (the story is set on an alien world, i.e., not earth), and I could tell you now that either way it's not going to be everybody's cup of tea, but I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Book: 6