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    Bookworm

    Charles Yu: How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe

    How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe (Pantheon) Charles Yu's sweeter-spirited vision of how vintage science fiction can be used to imagine our world. Caught in a computer game, the hero seeks to escape his chronic melancholy. It just so happens that our hero's name is the same as the author's...

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    By Michael Silverblatt • Oct 14, 2010 • 29m Listen

    How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe (Pantheon)

    Charles Yu's sweeter-spirited vision of how vintage science fiction can be used to imagine our world. Caught in a computer game, the hero seeks to escape his chronic melancholy. It just so happens that our hero's name is the same as the author's. In our conversation, the writing Yu works his creativity to a frenzy, bringing fiction, physics, math and philosophy to a happy meeting point: safe life in a universe controlled by the imagination.

    Read an excerpt from How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe.

    Charles Yu's bookshelf:

    The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker

    The Fermata by Nicholson Baker

    Galatea 2.2 by Richard Powers

    CivilWarLand in Bad Decline by George Saunders

    Pastoralia by George Saunders

    Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid

    by Douglas Hofstadter

    Forty Stories by Donald Barthelme

    Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

    As She Climbed Across the Table by Jonathan Lethem

    Foundation by Isaac Asimov

    • https://images.ctfassets.net/2658fe8gbo8o/AvYox6VuEgcxpd20Xo9d3/769bca4fbf97bf022190f4813812c1e2/new-default.jpg?h=250

      Michael Silverblatt

      host, 'Bookworm'

      CultureBooksArts
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