Updike makes a Pi Day reading list

ProblemsPaste Magazine today featured a booklist post from Tyler Kane on “8 Entertaining Math-Inspired Reads for Pi Day.”

Topping the list was An Abundance of Katherines by John Green, better known for The Fault in Our Stars. Right behind him was John Cheever’s The Geometry of Love, followed by Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow, David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park, The Number of the Beast by Robert A. Heinlein, John Updike’s Problems, and Brandon Sanderson’s The Rithmatist.

Of Problems, Kane writes, “Abandoning your family is as easy as simple math in John Updike’s bummer tale of domestic frustration. You’re treated to pages of a logic puzzle, dealing with the causes and effects that occur when A, B and C interact. Here, we see our main character juggling laundry, his children’s expenses and psychiatric visits—all in a new life with a younger woman. The worst part? This all looks easier on paper.”

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