Book of Numbers

"More impressive than all but a few novels published so far this decade . . . a wheeling meditation on the wired life, on privacy, on what being human in the age of binary code might mean . . . [Joshua] Cohen, all of thirty-four, emerges as a major American writer."- The New York Times §§A monumental, uproarious, and exuberant novel about the search-for love, truth, and the meaning of Life With The Internet.§§The enigmatic billionaire founder of Tetration, the world's most powerful tech company, hires a failed novelist, Josh Cohen, to ghostwrite his memoirs. The mogul, known as Principal, brings Josh behind the digital veil, tracing the rise of Tetration, which started in the earliest days of the Internet by revolutionizing the search engine before venturing into smartphones, computers, and the surveillance of American citizens. Principal takes Josh on a mind-bending world tour from Palo Alto to Dubai and beyond, initiating him into the secret pretext of the autobiography project and the life-or-death stakes that surround its publication.§§Insider tech exposé, leaked memoir-in-progress, international thriller, family drama, sex comedy, and biblical allegory, Book of Numbers renders the full range of modern experience both online and off. Embodying the Internet in its language, it finds the humanity underlying the virtual.§§Featuring one of the most unforgettable characters in contemporary fiction, Book of Numbers is an epic of the digital age, a triumph of a new generation of writers, and one of those rare books that renew the idea of what a novel can do.§§Please note that Book of Numbers uses a special pagination system inspired by binary notation: the part number precedes the page number, and is separated from it by a decimal point.§§Praise for Book of Numbers §§"The Great American Internet Novel is here. . . . Book of Numbers is a fascinating look at the dark heart of the Web . . . a page turner about life under the veil of digital surveillance . . . one of the best novels ever written about the Internet." - Rolling Stone §§"A hugely ambitious novel set in the high-tech world of now. It is a verbal high-wire act, daring in its tones and textures: clever, poetic, fast-moving, deeply playful, filled with jokes, savvy about machines, wise about people, dazzling and engrossing." -Colm Tóibín, The Guardian §§"Like Pynchon and Wallace, Cohen can write with tireless virtuosity about absolutely everything. . . . If John Henry is going to compete with the steam engine, he needs an almost superhuman energy and intelligence of his own-and if any writer has it, it is Joshua Cohen." - Tablet §§"A startlingly talented novelist . . . [His] deeply rewarding novel is about an online religion gone wrong-and its importance lies in the fact that nearly all of us in the modernized world are members of that faith, whether we know it or not." - The Wall Street Journal §§"A digital-age Ulysses ." - The New York Times Book Review §§"The next candidate for the Great American Novel . . . David Foster Wallace-level audacious." - Details § §"A brilliant book." - The Boston Globe §§"Frequently hilarious high satire of our digital world . . . a book after William Gaddis's heart that will be around well after most summer reads have been recycled (or deleted)." - New York §§From the Hardcover edition.