Daily Life in an Ivory Basement

While on travels (visiting the Computational Biology Initiative in San Antonio, Texas) I read two fiction books that were a cut above my normal sci-fi and fantasy reading material.

The Geographer's Library, by Jon Fasman was an entertaining read about alchemists. It took the same sort of pseudo-intellectual approach to fictionalizing history as The Da Vinci Code. Enjoyable puff. Well written.

The other book was Zadie Smith's book On Beauty, which was the "heavier" of the two books. It was apparently a serious contender for the Booker Prize. I personally found it a bit too entangled in academic nonsense; the writing was good, but the story was painful and annoying, and I couldn't appreciate the writing because the story got in the way.

--titus