#AMREADING Joshua Cohen, Book of Numbers.

This novel is a treasury of new word creations:

• Techsperanto
• Assisterati
• Taste arbiteur & approviste
• Agglutinated fatness of American pro football
• Cosmic latte (= beige)

Cohen’s innovative language extends to his descriptions as well, for example, of this book launch.

The location: A purposefully unreconstructed but rebranded wreckage harbored on the Hudson – the interior resembled a ruin, a rusted halfgutted rectilinear ‘spanse. Hangaresque, manufacturingesque. Previously a drydock, formerly a ropery. Had it just been built, it would’ve been a marvel – the type of modern design that architects and engineers torment themselves over, the natural course of things achieved by falling apart: foundation issues, an irresolvable roof, problem with the electric and plumbing.