The Geographer's Library

Although the title might scream “Pick Me Up!” to all bibliophiles, The Geographer's Library by Jon Fasman is not quite as book-centric as the title seems to suggest (or that I hoped for upon scooping it up a few months back for $1 at one of the fall book sales I attended). Fasman’s first novel is an unevenly paced mystery which includes some entertaining history… with a noir sensibility and the inventiveness of a Russian history major who believes in Alchemy, this book really was sort of fun. Reviewers compared it favorably to The Da Vinci Code (which seemed to be some publishers and authors main goal in creating books a few years ago), but since I never read Dan Brown’s bestseller, although I did see the movie, I really can only comment to say - yeah, I’m not real sure about all that - but, it might appeal to those who enjoyed it.

I guess I could recommend it to those who enjoy mysteries of an esoteric nature, but even then I am not sure… this book in no way has the literary or entertaining qualities of say some Umberto Eco's novels. I mainly have two complaints with this book - one is that Fasman seemed to give too much of the mystery away too early in the book… at a few points he seemed to be trying to reveal something clever that even this absent minded reader knew was coming - and, to me, this was obviously an author’s first novel… not necessarily a bad thing, but it does have some underdeveloped ideas and missing things which would fill out the story better (or “room to grow” if you prefer). As a point of success, I can say I would pickup Fasman’s next book, out now, at some point to give him another shot.