This is a real thinky book, kind of like [b:Sophie's World|10959|Sophie's World (Paperback)|Jostein Gaarder|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/21A6T5PH7YL._SL75_.jpg|4432325] but focusing on religion (and almost exclusively Judeo-Christian religion). The main character is a professor of psychology named Cass Seltzer. He's a nice guy who's just written a book called The Varieties of Religious Illusion (yes, there are a lot of William James references). Cass's book includes an appendix that lists out the 36 big arguments for the existence of God and then lists the flaws in each argument. Cass is now a famous atheist because of the success of the book, and we get to follow him around as he deals with his success, very often jumping way back in Cass's life to see how he got where he is. (Hint: he doesn't seem like a stereotypical atheist at all.)

In order to enjoy this book I had to learn to do one thing: every time Cass's mentor Jonas Elijah Klapper started talking I would skim. Yes, folks, that is the secret to enjoying this book. Cass may revere Klapper, but it's obvious that Klapper is an insane blowhard and his crazy complicated rants should not be read closely. If you try to understand what he's saying, you may end up throwing the book across the room. So don't. The book stands up without knowing what the hell Klapper is talking about, I think because he is not actually saying anything meaningful. And that may be the point.

Focus instead of some great characters: Azarya, Roz, and Cass himself. Azaraya is a mathematical genius who also happens to have the future of a rare Hasidic Jewish sect resting on this shoulders. Roz is a boisterous anthropologist who bounces in and out of Cass's life. Cass is so smart and yet really dumb about women. These three are the heart of the novel and you'll rush past the annoying characters (Klapper, Lucinda, Pascale) to read more about them.

This book is not for everyone, but if you like to laugh at academia and its ridiculousness, and are interested in the varieties of religious experience, then go for it. If you want to skip the novel and just read the appendix, do it. But I'd also find the chapters with the Harvard Agnostic Chaplaincy debate between Cass and Felix Findley and read it too. More than a debate about the existence of God, it's a defense of atheism, and even sort of makes you think that atheists like Cass can be filled with a sense of purpose, morality, and faith that is perhaps more meaningful than simply believing in God. ( )

Just got about 30 pages into it, it’s not the right kind of book for me, esp in the midst of a corona virus epidemic. I suppose I might try it again some day.

The books plot meanders. It jumps back without warning, switches perspectives jarringly, and in some spots (when the Yiddish and the Jewish mysticism get thrown at you) the tale gets downright confusing and the names nearly impossible to keep track of. However, the humor is pervasive and her ideas are big. One of the most interesting aspects is how Goldstein's characters are in no way trying to paint religion in a negative light - in fact, Cass goes to great pains to avoid doing so. Goldstein's argument is logical, not emotional.

The latter part of the book, an essay describing the 36 Arguments for God and the refutations are written concisely in stark contrast the novel before it. Every argument Goldstein presents is easily understood. An atheist would be hard pressed to find a better reference material if they're dragged into the age-old arguments: "Does God exist?" and "Can we be moral without God?" ( )

About page 50 I didn't think I could continue - of the five main characters, three were unbearable to me. Fortunately one improved on acquaintance and the other two barely made an appearance. As her critics say, this author has a great feel for weaving philosophy into her fiction without weighing down the story. In this case, the philosophy (and psychology) of religion. I read this book at the same time as Bill Bryson's 'History of Nearly Everything' and coincidentally it turns out that they are complementary. Both ask 'Why are we here?' and '36' adds 'And what are we supposed to do about it?'. I don't think this author ever puts characters in more than one book but I wish she would write another featuring Azarya Sheiner, one of the most interesting fictional characters I've ever encountered. ( )

Redeemed by the ending. Poorly organized and could have used some editing. Lots of loose ends. ( )

This is set in an American academic setting, with the characters all being stereotypes. They are all Pretentious and arrogant. Especially Jonas Elijah Klapper, with his tremendous ego. I guess this was deliberate. Cass Seltzer, the lead, is perhaps the only likable character along with the Rabbi and his son, the child prodigy.
In the appendix, 36 arguments for the existence of God are presented in order to be refuted. It isn’t very good either. They are mostly straw men. She trivializes the cosmological argument and also the even more dubious a priori ontological arguments and the refutations are more often than not silly.
This was recommended to me as a mathematical fiction but there isn’t really any math in it. But still, the book had its moments. There are some interesting ideas and I learned a lot about Hasidic Judaism.
( )

Redeemed by the ending. Poorly organized and could have used some editing. Lots of loose ends. ( )

A novel of the search for certitude in an improbable world. ( )

I began reading 36 Arguments without much hope of enjoying it. Of course, the same dread filled me as I purchased it since I am often lured by the marriage of fiction with philosophy, though the marriage almost always end up a Sophie's World sort of debacle. Yet, pulled to such book I always am. Another reason I began this book without much hope of enjoying it is that I read some reviews on this site & others like it. The reviews made it sound as the book was filled with "heavy" stuff that required more than the usual amount of concentration allotted novel reading to wend ones way through. I have failed to find anything that has taxed my brain, in fact, I find myself smiling, even grinning an awful lot. The term “pretentious” was lobbed about quite freely in some reviewa. As for that charge, the book is far too slyly good-natured to be anything like pretentious. Yes, the characters engage in philosophic, religious, and mathematic debate, but given the fact the most of the characters are part of academia, it would be odd for them not to discuss these things. I am happy to report that I am more the pleasantly surprised with the book as a whole.
The book’s plot follows the intellectual odyssey of Cass Seltzer, an atheist psychologist who has recently published a book in entitled The Illusions of Religious Experiences. The book has made him the newest celebrity of the intelligentsia, a role with which he is not entirely comfortable. Nor is he so sure of the tag with which the media has stuck him, “the atheist with a soul,” but then again when one is an non-believer who counts a Gerard Manley Hopkins poem as ones second favorite poem, one is liable to get stuck with an ironic nickname or two. For all his success, Cass has stayed
humble; considering he is romantically involved with the self-promoting, fanging “Goddess of Game Theory” who routinely lets him know he is intellectually small potatoes compared to her, he has had some help in this regard.
As Cass comes to terms with his new role as a star of the academic firmament, he reviews his past; his upbringing as the child of a woman who has fled her Hassidic upbringing, his friendship with an angelic Hassidic child with a gift for math, his short career as the protégé of a academic guru (one who bears more than a slight resemblance to Harold Bloom), his marriage to a French poet, and his love affair with an earthy anthropologist. One thing becomes remarkably clear as the story progresses; Cass has a near perfect track record for worshipping the perfectly loathsome. Sweet Cass is naïve and then some. It is his good fortune that his affability has drawn some good sorts to him as well.
The characters are all wonderfully drawn, it is hard not to adore Cass and his friend Roz. The philosophic and religious themes intriguing and well leavened with humor and gentle irony. It is also the sort of book that makes one want to find out more about other things; Hasidim, game theory…..
For the most part this book reads like a bottle of vinho verde, crisp with just enough effervescence to give it a bit of sparkle, but not seem clever, that is, clever in the worst sense of the word.
The book just got better and better as I read. Before I was even done, I had recommended it to at least five people. ( )

I began reading 36 Arguments without much hope of enjoying it. Of course, the same dread filled me as I purchased it since I am often lured by the marriage of fiction with philosophy, though the marriage almost always end up a Sophie's World sort of debacle. Yet, pulled to such book I always am. Another reason I began this book without much hope of enjoying it is that I read some reviews on this site & others like it. The reviews made it sound as the book was filled with "heavy" stuff that required more than the usual amount of concentration allotted novel reading to wend ones way through. I have failed to find anything that has taxed my brain, in fact, I find myself smiling, even grinning an awful lot. The term “pretentious” was lobbed about quite freely in some reviewa. As for that charge, the book is far too slyly good-natured to be anything like pretentious. Yes, the characters engage in philosophic, religious, and mathematic debate, but given the fact the most of the characters are part of academia, it would be odd for them not to discuss these things. I am happy to report that I am more the pleasantly surprised with the book as a whole.
The book’s plot follows the intellectual odyssey of Cass Seltzer, an atheist psychologist who has recently published a book in entitled The Illusions of Religious Experiences. The book has made him the newest celebrity of the intelligentsia, a role with which he is not entirely comfortable. Nor is he so sure of the tag with which the media has stuck him, “the atheist with a soul,” but then again when one is an non-believer who counts a Gerard Manley Hopkins poem as ones second favorite poem, one is liable to get stuck with an ironic nickname or two. For all his success, Cass has stayed
humble; considering he is romantically involved with the self-promoting, fanging “Goddess of Game Theory” who routinely lets him know he is intellectually small potatoes compared to her, he has had some help in this regard.
As Cass comes to terms with his new role as a star of the academic firmament, he reviews his past; his upbringing as the child of a woman who has fled her Hassidic upbringing, his friendship with an angelic Hassidic child with a gift for math, his short career as the protégé of a academic guru (one who bears more than a slight resemblance to Harold Bloom), his marriage to a French poet, and his love affair with an earthy anthropologist. One thing becomes remarkably clear as the story progresses; Cass has a near perfect track record for worshipping the perfectly loathsome. Sweet Cass is naïve and then some. It is his good fortune that his affability has drawn some good sorts to him as well.
The characters are all wonderfully drawn, it is hard not to adore Cass and his friend Roz. The philosophic and religious themes intriguing and well leavened with humor and gentle irony. It is also the sort of book that makes one want to find out more about other things; Hasidim, game theory…..
For the most part this book reads like a bottle of vinho verde, crisp with just enough effervescence to give it a bit of sparkle, but not seem clever, that is, clever in the worst sense of the word.
The book just got better and better as I read. Before I was even done, I had recommended it to at least five people. ( )

I began reading 36 Arguments without much hope of enjoying it. Of course, the same dread filled me as I purchased it since I am often lured by the marriage of fiction with philosophy, though the marriage almost always end up a Sophie's World sort of debacle. Yet, pulled to such book I always am. Another reason I began this book without much hope of enjoying it is that I read some reviews on this site & others like it. The reviews made it sound as the book was filled with "heavy" stuff that required more than the usual amount of concentration allotted novel reading to wend ones way through. I have failed to find anything that has taxed my brain, in fact, I find myself smiling, even grinning an awful lot. The term “pretentious” was lobbed about quite freely in some reviewa. As for that charge, the book is far too slyly good-natured to be anything like pretentious. Yes, the characters engage in philosophic, religious, and mathematic debate, but given the fact the most of the characters are part of academia, it would be odd for them not to discuss these things. I am happy to report that I am more the pleasantly surprised with the book as a whole.
The book’s plot follows the intellectual odyssey of Cass Seltzer, an atheist psychologist who has recently published a book in entitled The Illusions of Religious Experiences. The book has made him the newest celebrity of the intelligentsia, a role with which he is not entirely comfortable. Nor is he so sure of the tag with which the media has stuck him, “the atheist with a soul,” but then again when one is an non-believer who counts a Gerard Manley Hopkins poem as ones second favorite poem, one is liable to get stuck with an ironic nickname or two. For all his success, Cass has stayed
humble; considering he is romantically involved with the self-promoting, fanging “Goddess of Game Theory” who routinely lets him know he is intellectually small potatoes compared to her, he has had some help in this regard.
As Cass comes to terms with his new role as a star of the academic firmament, he reviews his past; his upbringing as the child of a woman who has fled her Hassidic upbringing, his friendship with an angelic Hassidic child with a gift for math, his short career as the protégé of a academic guru (one who bears more than a slight resemblance to Harold Bloom), his marriage to a French poet, and his love affair with an earthy anthropologist. One thing becomes remarkably clear as the story progresses; Cass has a near perfect track record for worshipping the perfectly loathsome. Sweet Cass is naïve and then some. It is his good fortune that his affability has drawn some good sorts to him as well.
The characters are all wonderfully drawn, it is hard not to adore Cass and his friend Roz. The philosophic and religious themes intriguing and well leavened with humor and gentle irony. It is also the sort of book that makes one want to find out more about other things; Hasidim, game theory…..
For the most part this book reads like a bottle of vinho verde, crisp with just enough effervescence to give it a bit of sparkle, but not seem clever, that is, clever in the worst sense of the word.
The book just got better and better as I read. Before I was even done, I had recommended it to at least five people. ( )

What an astonishing, wonderful, spectacular, deep and wonderful book this! Enriching to the maximum. What a splendid way to relay philosophy, and religion. The writing is absolutely beautiful and I felt my brains expand mightily as I was reading everything. What a remarkable understanding of angst the writer has. How marvelous the tension! How superbly, beatifically soulful and human this book is. I'm stopping now because I've run out of adjectives, but as you can see, I love this book. Absolutely an incredible, moving experience. Wow! Note: the title is slightly misleading. Carefully be mindful of the subtitle. Don't come crying to me if you read the book based on my recommendation and end up with something you didn't expect. ( )

36 Arguments was good enough to finish. It was an interesting approach to the debate between those of faith and those of no faith in God. Goldstein balanced the argument fairly and shed light on the issues generously. Goldstein will help you get you to look up from your ostrich like mind stuck in your philosophical sandbox; the book is sure to light your theological ire up and encourage you to join the conversation between atheists and believers.

She also motivated me to read Spinoza's Philosophy. I am always looking for gurus(alive or dead) to motivate me to think beyond my boxed in existence. Spinoza will help shape my box made of Logos.

36 Arguments became cumbersome in the narrative, it just did not flow, and seemed to be just another piece of writing about the college experience. (E.G. Brett Easton Ellis: Rules of Attraction.)

I was convinced, after our book discussion, to re-read the narrative alone and see if my thoughts are the same. The kind ladies at the E Book Discussion are so good in motivating me to take another look, and for this I am thankful. ( )

One star. Oh that's harsh, but I couldn't even force myself to adhere to my read-100-pages-before-abandoning-a-book rule. So poorly written, IMHO, and with such unappealing yet overblown characters that I just couldn't go on. After 70 pages of fiction-induced torture, I skipped straight to the Appendix, which IS interesting in that it lists the novel's 36 Arguments for the Existence of God, along with the protagonist cum author's deconstruction of or rebuttal to each. Better than Dawkins' non-fictional The God Delusion in that this summary is succinct, amusing, user-friendly and lacking in pomposity. ( )

I loved Goldstein's humour and obvious intelligence, and I really appreciated the arguments at the end of the book - my family had great fun discussions based on that. The passages which go a little too into detail on judaism were lost to me, however. Goldstein's insight on academia and their behaviour, fears and the way they live and play amused me greatly. On the overall, a very enjoyable book. ( )

I flipped through and found what I saw too boring to actually sit down and read. Sorry!

Writers are often told that their characters need to “pop off the page.” Well, these certainly do, but my god (oops), are they annoying! From the colorful, self-interested professor Jonas Elijah Klapper to “Roz,” the colorful, bubbly ex-girlfriend, these are not people you would want next to you on a long bus ride. I suppose that doesn’t matter and good literature can certainly be made of unlikeable people (witness: [b:Rabbit Angstrom|85386|Rabbit, Run|John Updike|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1333578676s/85386.jpg|802269]), but I felt 36 isn’t aware that its characters are tiresome, the way, say, [b:Great Expectations|2623|Great Expectations|Charles Dickens|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327920219s/2623.jpg|2612809] knows Miss Havisham is more than a little odd.

The novel’s chapters are each named after a different argument for the existence of God, but I don’t always see plainly the connection between the argument and the content of the chapter. I’d confess that that’s probably on me, since the novel is extremely well thought-out. Goldstein knows her subject matter. A debate on the existence of God between the pensive protagonist, Cass Seltzer (the “atheist with a soul”) and some NRO-type blowhard is extremely well done. She does a great job of avoiding what would be a much easier but less convincing route in which the pro-God debater is a moron lobbing softballs for the atheist to easily knock into the grandstands.

An appendix follows the narrative, listing out and then demolishing thirty-six actual arguments for the existence of God. A similar appendix follows the fictional main character’s book so it’s not totally clear if this is Goldstein’s appendix or Cass Seltzer’s. Either way, it’s well done, even if most of the heavy lifting has been done for years. ( )

Finally back to writing fiction after the wonderful "Properties of Light: A Novel of Love, Hate and Quantum Physics," Goldstein presents Cass Seltzer, professor of the unpopular psychology of religion at the unrenowned Franfurter University, who suddenly finds himself a celebrity. The world, unaccountably, has taken an intense interest in the psychology of religion, the science of religious experience, the New Age, and Seltzer's book, "The Varieties of Religious Illusion," has become a bestseller. Television's talking heads want to talk to him; "Time" magazine has dubbed him "the atheist with a soul." Harvard has come calling. Add to this that he's in love with his beautiful and brilliant fellow faculty member Lucinda, who loves him back, and we've arrived at an explication of Goldstein's first argument: "The Argument from the Improbable Self."

So she's off and rolling through her arguments via a shrewd and witty satire of faculty life, with flashbacks to Cass's student life, spent in thrall to the pompous and preposterous Jonas Elijah Klapper (dubbed "The Klap" by his then girlfriend Roz, who will reappear as "The Argument from the Irrepressible Past"). ( )

The debate over God’s existence as worked into this story was of interest, Goldstein is obviously very intelligent, and there are some interesting supporting characters here, but the book was a bit too philosophical for me. What the book needed more of was Roz Margolis, the main character’s love from the past with a BIG personality, and passages such as the game theory analysis of two people in a romantic relationship, neither of whom has said “I love you” yet, which was brilliant. If you do read it, don’t bother with the appendix, the actual arguments for the existence of God. While an interesting collection, they are tedious in both argument and rebuttal.

Quotes:
On Existentialism:
“I can’t look at other creatures who are committed to their existence and flourishing in the same way as I’m committed to my existence and flourishing without feeling a certain degree of identification, empathy, sympathy, compassion. The intuition that we ought to do unto others as we would have them do unto us flows naturally from this outward move.”

On genius:
“Genius was a matter of incantatory intuitions and phosphorescent blasts into the dark. Genius was a matter of thunderclap reasons, of which reason knew nothing. Genius was oracular, overweening, and severe. It is left to others to grub around in dusty doubts and cavil in insect voices. … Genius itself is diseased and self-destructive, antisocial and ill-mannered. It’s also the only thing that redeems us.”

On God, and suffering:
“Suffering provides us wonderful opportunities for character-building. Yes, I’m familiar with this line of reasoning. The only people who push it are the God-apologists, who are trying to make excuses for what an insufferable world this is, even though there’s supposed to be an omnipotent, omniscient, and well-intentioned Big Boy running the show. Any suffering the apologists can’t rationalize away as a product of our having the ennobling capacity for free will, including the free will to inflict unspeakable atrocities on one another, they try to explain with this character-building song and dance. I find the song pornographic and the dance macabre.”

On love, this a reference to Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach”:
“…what’s left to believe in? and to grasp the same answer that the poet had seized on: love and love alone. Love is the only solace. Not just any love, of course, not an easy, superficial love, but the love of the like-minded, the like-souled, the one who hears the eternal note of sadness in the same key and register as you.”

On loyalty:
“As wild and unpredictable as she was, she was always on his side. That was and would always be predictable. And he was on hers. Even without always getting what her side was, he knew with certainty that he’d be on it, and she’d be on his.”

On morality:
“When we’re trying to teach a child why it’s wrong to pick on another child, do we say, ‘It’s wrong because if I catch you doing it again you’ll be spanked,’ or do we, rather, say, ‘How would you feel if someone did that to you?’ And when we’re wrestling with our own conscience, trying to resist a temptation we know is wrong, do we think to ourselves, ‘If I do it, then I’ll be flambéed in hell’s fires’, or do we think, ‘Would I want everyone in the world to behave this way? Wouldn’t I feel moral outrage if I learned of someone else doing this?’”

On mortality:
“’…nobody would want to go back to the days when forty was considered a ripe old age…’
‘Forty! For the first few hundred thousand years of human history, half of the population died in infancy and childhood! A third of young men died in warfare before they were twenty. A woman’s marriage ceremony was rape, and she had a good chance of dying if a pregnancy came of it. Talk about nasty, brutish, and short! But did our species give in to this barbarism? Of course not! And we’re the lucky results of the Glorious Refusal, which means we have the obligation to keep on refusing the barbarities that nature is constantly trying to force on us!’”

On religion; I admire this one for its balance, since Jewish culture and Hasidism pervade much of the book:
“The Maccabees, in opposing Hellenism, were opposing cosmopolitanism. They were religious fundamentalists who might well have sympathized with the Taliban’s dynamiting of the Buddhas of Bamyan in Afghanistan, classics of Indo-Greek art that the religious purists decreed must go, since they had once been used as idols.” ( )

Spoilers. Definitely Spoilers. No God. This is a pretty long book but she is a good writer and she makes it very interesting and engaging. I liked it a lot for a while but then I didn't like it quite so much. The little boy proving that there is an infinite number of primes to the dancing hasidim just didn't ring true to me. Maybe I'm wrong. But of course, much in the novel doesn't ring true, particularly of course the grotesque villain. And, to a lesser extent, the crazy women. Why does this nice guy end up totally besotted by these crazy women? The nicest characters in the book are Roz (by far), his mother, and the genius. Anyway, it was entertaining, and I learned some things.

Evoked memories of a particular prof in college that tried to create a cult of personality and bemoaned the lack of something in the freshman. This book also evoked memories of Chaim Potok's The Chosen. I remember being at least a little attracted to the Hasidim in The Chosen, but in this book they just seemed like any other restrictive sect. I suppose that I have become more thoroughly secular in the subsequent 30 years. Cass Seltzer seems to be very unlucky with women; to bad he could not have stayed with Roz. She was my favorite character. ( )

Meh. The problem with "arguing" about the existence of god is that it's asking the wrong questions. Yes, there are things we don't understand. Let's experience them and accept them and talk about them without thinking we know what they are (god or aliens, et al) or trying to convince ourselves they aren't happening (aka "being rational"). ( )

I stuck with this treatise pretending to be a novel simply because I had NOTHING else to read at the time. The character of Azarya drew me deeper into the book and it is his story that I find myself thinking about. If I am not mistaken, Azarya is a modern type of Jesus and his community not unlike the Pharisees of Jesus' time. What Azarya, unmistakably a genius, chooses to do with his life invites the reader to make comparisons with Jesus' life, particularly how he evolved into Messiah. Worth reading for that part. ( )

One of the funniest and yet serious books in a long time. Great characters set in the Boston area. Goldstein knows her geography and academia! ( )

I first encountered the writing of Rebecca Goldstein when I read her novel, The Mind-Body Problem. It is an informed, witty and very humorous look into the relationship of two academics and their grappling with that famous philosophical issue among other things. Having enjoyed that book enough to recommend it to others I looked forward to reading her latest novel, 36 Arguments for the Existence of God. I was not disappointed. It reminds me that I have missed most of her writing in the interim, which includes other fiction, as well as biographical works about Gödel and Spinoza.

Her latest, however, is a big, ambitious novel that is nominally about God, although it unfolds on an extremely earthly plane. Overcomplicated yet dazzling, sparked by frequent flashes of nonchalant brilliance, 36 Arguments for the Existence of God affirms Ms. Goldstein’s rare ability to explore the quotidian and the cosmological with equal ease. The main character, Cass Seltzer, has written a book called "The Varieties of Religious Illusion" (see William James and Sigmund Freud) which has, surprisingly to the author, become a best-seller. Nobody in Ms. Goldstein’s novel thinks much of Cass’s book, Cass included. But it has become enormously popular thanks to the book’s appendix, which is called “36 Arguments for the Existence of God.” That appendix is also included as an appendix to Ms. Goldstein’s novel. And it offers a coherent refutation of each one of the 36 arguments that are listed. Cass became a celebrity because he made the case for atheism so well.

The rest of Ms. Goldstein’s book, the fictitious part, is divided into 36 chapters. Each chapter is titled with a fictitious argument mirroring the 36 in Cass's own book; titles like "The Argument from Lucinda" (his enamored beauty and current girl friend) or "The Argument from Strange Laughter". The chapter titles remind me of epigraphs in that they both suggest and connect to plot moments covered by the chapter. The main thread of the book is the argument for and against belief in the existence of God, The climax of which occurs almost by accident. Cass almost forgets that he will be debating the existence of God with a Nobel Laureate at Harvard, but remembers this commitment only the night before the debate. It is held in "the beautiful nave of the church" at Harvard and sponsored by the "Agnostic Chaplaincy"! I was impressed with the dream-like setting of the debate and the moment when the argument that "lack of a higher authority" would mean that "it all dissolves into moral chaos and ethical relativism. . ."(p 315). This reminded me of Ivan's argument in The Brothers Karamazov.

Since the debate constitutes one of this book’s big dramatic moments and is so hastily introduced, it’s not surprising to find smaller plot points being treated in equally haphazard ways. On the other hand, give Ms. Goldstein a philosophical case to make about potato kugel, Jewish cuisine and Kabbalistic numerology, and she really does soar. Some of the humor in the book comes at the expense of academia with Cass considering an offer from Harvard as a result of his book after long being stuck in the backwater of Frankfurter University. Overall, despite a bit of excess complexity, this was an entertaining novel of ideas leavened by sophisticated humor. ( )