{"product_id":"9781569479766","title":"Luminarium","description":"Fred  Brounian and his twin brother, George, were once co-CEOs of a  burgeoning New York City software company devoted to the creation of  utopian virtual worlds. Now, in the summer of 2006, as two wars rage and  the fifth anniversary of 9\/11 approaches, George has fallen into a  coma, control of the company has been wrenched away by a military  contracting conglomerate, and Fred has moved back in with his parents.  Broke and alone, he’s led by an attractive woman, Mira, into a  neurological study promising to give him \"peak\" experiences and a  newfound spiritual outlook on life. As the study progresses, lines  between the subject and the experimenter blur, and reality becomes  increasingly porous. Meanwhile, Fred finds himself caught up in what  seems at first a cruel prank: a series of bizarre emails and texts that  purport to be from his comatose brother.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMoving between the  research hospitals of Manhattan, the streets of a meticulously planned  Florida city, the neighborhoods of Brooklyn and the uncanny, immersive  worlds of urban disaster simulation;  threading through military  listserv geek-speak, Hindu cosmology, the maxims of outmoded self-help  books and the latest neuroscientific breakthroughs, \u003ci\u003eLuminarium\u003c\/i\u003e is  a brilliant examination of the way we live now, a novel that’s as much  about the role technology and spirituality play in shaping our reality  as it is about the undying bond between brothers, and the redemptive  possibilities of love.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Luminarium is dizzyingly smart and provocative, exploring as it does the state of the present, of technology, of what is real and what is ephemeral. But the thing that separates Luminarium from other books that discuss avatars, virtual reality and the like is that Alex Shakar is committed throughout with trying, relentlessly, to flat-out explain the meaning of life. This book is funny, and soulful, and very sad, but so intellectually invigorating that you'll want to read it twice.\" — Dave Eggers \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"This fascinating, hilarious novel, though set in the past, is the story  of the future: technology has outlapped us, reality is blinking on and  off like a bad wireless connection,  the ones we love are nearby in one  sense, but far away in another. Yet at the book’s galloping heart, it’s  the story of what one man is willing to go through to find—in our  crowded, second-rate space—something like faith. This novel is sharp,  original, and full of energy—obviously the work of a brilliant mind.” —  Deb Olin Unferth, author of \u003ci\u003eRevolution: The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the War\u003c\/i\u003e","brand":"Soho Press, Incorporated","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47158825910512,"sku":"9781569479766","price":9.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781569479766_p0.jpg?v=1763790911","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781569479766","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}