I've been meaning to read this since it was published....in 1999. Sad. And I wish I had read it earlier as it's definitely a bit dated now (It's always tough to read a pre-2001 book that is set in New York City. However it's amusing to see the things that Andersen predicted that now exist, and don't), but it's still a great book, in the great-American-novel-of-the-moment category, like Jonathan Franzen's Freedom. It's looooong, though, so be prepared and the ending is a little too happily-ever-after to be taken seriously.Oh, and Warren? Great guy. And favorite line(s), "Howard Moorehead obviously considers himself professorial, but to Lizzie he looks like the sad, pompous senior man behind the formalwear counter at Bergdorf Goodman. Lizzie tries hard not to judge books by their covers, but she never hesitates to judge the covers."
This book really should get a 3.5, or if there were a 10 star system, 7 stars. I was pondering as to whether to assign three or four stars, eventually settling on four, because:1) In spite of it being a 1999 timepiece, it translated well to 2014.2) It didn't pretend to have any heroes, a constant irritation of mine with various bestsellers.3) It seemed a particularly adequate representation of the media, both then and now.While some compared this to "Bonfire Of The Vanities" (Which I'd give five stars), we need not kid ourselves - "Turn Of The Century" is many rungs below that.
Do You like book Turn Of The Century (2000)?
Personally, I enjoyed this one a good bit, but I'm only giving it three stars. That's because I can't see it being particularly accessible to anyone who has never lived in New York and worked in either media, technology, or possibly finance. The software-company boardroom scenes, and the depictions of i-bank trading (while eerily pertinent given the events in the financial services industry earlier this month) sometimes got flat-out, instruction-manual boring, but the rest of "Turn of the Centur
—Caroline
I really did enjoy this book. His writing style is clean and snarky, and his characters are vividly drawn. He really captures the feel of the city at the time. As the book was published in 1999, the story is set in the near future, and on so many things he was eerily prescient. But unfortunately real-world events overtook the book, and every casual mention of the World Trade Center just grabbed at my heart. Perhaps that's unfair, but now, 11 years after the year 2000, despite all the details he got right, it all just strikes me as a little ... quaint.
—MJ
