Engaging protagonist. Obsessed characters. Good story. Ultimately disappointing.

It's nice to read a complicated historical/science novel that doesn't have to save the world/universe. Just a librarian trying to track down a famous watch for a creepy client. It could have easily gone down the Dan Brown path, but it was more interested in the journey. Of interest are digressions into historical watches; pop-up books; the Dewey Decimal System and its relation to life, universe and everything; tattoos; curiosity cabinets; automatons; and the lifestyles of the rich and introverted.

A New York "mystery" with obsessions of 18th Century chronometers and library science. This had a pretty high credibility hurdle for me, but Kurzweil makes it interesting and enjoyable. His characters have more intellectual than emotional depth but the pace covers this well and this perspective on the public library is priceless.

I got the book because some characters are librarians but the writing just didn't catch me. After several chapters I gave up on it.

This book seemed to be mainly a vehicle for library in-jokes (which was actually fine with me, but might not appeal to a broader reader base). There are constant mentions of things like OCLC, retrospective conversion and one person is described as being less sharing than the Stanford University interlibrary loan policy (hint: they don't loan anything, but that's never explained). The characters are weak and, for the most part, unlikable. I don't always think I need to like a character to enjoy a book, but most of these are bland. Mr Jesson, for example, is drawn in great detail, with much attention give to all of his quirks of dress, dwelling and occupations, but in spite of all that, I, as a reader, didn't really care anything for him. Its good for a laugh and for looking for library puns and jokes, and I always am interested in art theft themes, but I really wouldn't recommend it.

When I picked this book up from the library, I thought it was going to be another RAY Kurzweil book. Alas, it was a different author. I was nervous about reading a book I didn't intend to read, but it was a mystery and I was somewhat enamored by it by the end.

nope.

Lovely modern novel that has a great Victorian feel to it. Also, librarian!

Not worth the time. Many an author has rendered better tales of bookish sleuths, less the rampant sexism, homophobia, and racial stereotyping.

A fun novel. Sort of a detective story with a love conflict thrown in. Alex Short, a librarian, is hired by a rich guy to find a watch once owned by Marie Antoinette called the Grand Complications. of course he encounters other complications.

Very readable and fun book. I'm not sure that much stick with you. Definitely a book for librarians and people that work there. There's a little more to this book than the usual mystery, but not really worth trying to figure out what that is.

Unfortunately, as good as A Case of Curiosities was, it only heightened the dissappointment of The Grand Complicatioon. Trying very hard to be Richard Powers or Paul Auster was not the way to go here. The tone of the first book is completely missing. I love historical novels, and the sense of time and place in A Case of Curiosities was captivating, but totally lacking here. Too much twee nonsense about library nerds, boolean search strings and art heists. None of the characters seemed the least bit real or interesting and the action was largely preposterous.