I am a psycho linguist

I'm still slogging through Foucault's Pendulum, slogging being used affectionately here as I do like it. Scotter gave up after 40 pages or so which was a mistake, but it's definitely in the same vein as Gravity's Rainbow or Infinite Jest in that it starts off right in the middle of things (or, in the case of IJ, the end) and goes a bit before giving any sort of backstory. But once you get to the explanations of everything that's going on, Foucault's Pendulum is quite accessible and not considerably easier read than you'd think. There isn't a whole lot to it though.

Anyway, I bring this up now because I was reading this in the Times about what would seem to be a similar book (they compare it to The Name of the Rose, but they're all the same, I'm sure). I have no desire to read any more secret society/occult/mass conspiracy books right now, but what caught my eye was this: "The novel will make a debut at No. 6 on The Times best-seller list on Sunday and will rise to No. 3 on the list on June 6." Now what on earth does that mean? I could understand that there is a certain amount of lead time involved in compiling the bestseller list, but two weeks in advance seems like a lot. Or is the article's author just making mystical predictions in the spirit of the books, using his considerable psycho-linguistic power not to augur geopolitical changes but a gradual ascent on a meaningless list? That's the real mystery here.

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