Book of Numbers

PRAISE FOR JOSHUA COHEN

“To sum this up in Web terms, he’ll make you want to be an angel investor in his stuff. What’s a book but a public offering? You’ll want to be in on the ground floor.”

— The New York Times

“Intelligent, lyrical, prosaic, theoretical, pragmatic, funny, serious … [Cohen’s] best prose does everything at once.”

— The New Yorker

“Cohen, a key member of the United States’ under-40 writers’ club (along with Nell Freudenberger and Jonathan Safran Foer), is a rare talent who makes highbrow writing fun and accessible.”

— Marie Claire

“In Mr. Cohen’s hands, a meme is a matter of life and death, because he goes from the reality we all know — the link, the click — to the one we tend to forget: the human.… Mr. Cohen is ambitious. He is mapping terra incognita.”

— The New York Observer

“[Cohen has] manifold talents at digging under and around absurdity.… The reward is an off-kilter precision, one that feels both untainted and unique.”

— Rachel Kushner, author of The Flamethrowers

“Like [David Foster] Wallace, Cohen is clearly concerned with the depersonalizing effects of technology, broken people doing depraved things, and how the two intersect in tragic (and, sometimes, hilarious) ways.”

— The Boston Globe

“What dazzles here is a Pynchonesque verbal dexterity, the sonic effect of exotic vocabulary, terraced sentences, robust puns and metaphors, and edgy, Tarantino-like dialogue.”

— Review of Contemporary Fiction

“Cohen packs whole histories and destructions, maps and traditions, into single sentences. He employs lists, codes, and invented syntax with the sure hand of a visionary, his prowess and passion further emboldened by a boundless sense of scope.”

— The Believer

“There is ample evidence that Joshua Cohen is one of the greatest literary minds of his generation.”

— Flavorpill