Alyce from At Home With Books features one of her favorite reads each Thursday and this week my pick is…
Pattern Recognition by William Gibson.
From the inside cover: We have no future because our present is too volatile. We have only risk management. The spinning of the given moment’s scenarios. Pattern recognition…
Cayce Pollard is a new kind of prophet — a world-renowned “coolhunter” who predicts the hottest trends. While in London to evaluate the redesign of a famous corporate logo, she’s offered a different assignment: find the creator of the obscure, enigmatic video clips being uploaded on the Internet — footage this is generating massive underground buzz worldwide.
Still haunted by the memory of her missing father — a Cold War security guru who disappeared in downtown Manhattan on the morning of September 11, 2001 — Cayce is soon traveling through parallel universes of marketing, globalization, and terror, heading always for the still point where the three converge. From London to Tokya to Moscow, she follows the implications of a secret as disturbing — and compelling — as the 21st Century promises to be…
My thoughts: I’ve read a few Gibson novels and this one is by far my favorite. It’s also set in the present which is a little different since his books are almost always set in the future.
My husband has a soft spot for Gibson and he was the one that brought this book home. At the time, I didn’t have any intention of reading it. I like Gibson but it just didn’t grab me. He kept telling me I’d love it and finally I picked it up one day and didn’t put it down until I finished. I wish I could describe it better, and maybe it’s just that I also have a soft spot for Gibson, but I got pulled into this book and couldn’t put it down. Yes, there’s a lot going on and you’re not quite sure how it all fits together but then suddenly, all the pieces fit and you’re left wondering if any of this will actually happen. In the case of this one which is about marketing and globalization, the answer is probably yes.
If you don’t think a book based on business intelligence can make for an interesting read, well, you’re wrong. It does.
Just Book Reading 
Based on the topic, I wouldn’t have thought it would be intriguing, but your description tells me otherwise. Sounds fascinating.
Here’s mine:
http://rainysnowday.wordpress.com/2010/07/29/my-favorite-reads-2/
I wouldn’t usually consider the topic interesting but Gibson’s a great writer.
It sounds like something from a movie. It’s funny because I just realized that I would usually watch this type of movie with my husband, but not normally read this kind of book. I guess I should stretch my reading a bit more.
I really enjoyed it and it’s not something I would normally read either.