I've been meaning to read this since it came out... and I should have picked it up earlier. The copy I bought was a $5 paperback in a bin at the Bay, of all places, which tells you how long I've been really meaning to pick this up.
Gibson's Virtual Light was my favourite book at 14/15. There's something about the female leads in his novels - they are the kinds of women I would want to be. That goes for Cayce Pollard, the lead in Pattern Recognition, as well. Who wouldn't want to be Cayce, with her all black outfits and her ability to determine what will be cool? Even her allergy to brandnames and trademarks is cool.
Gibson's look into an extreme, technological world of marketing is dead on - it's advanced, but based in reality and very possible. The solution to who makes the footage, and how one person could possibly be the source is both brilliant and eerily plausible. Even the 9/11 references, which are key to the plot and character development, are beyond plausible - they are necessary to the story. Gibson has managed to capture what most of the world has been feeling about the tragic events, without playing them out for the tragedy.
Gibson references the real world, from brand names and trademarks to real world figures (as pointed out early on, Cayce is so named for Edgar Cayce, the famous early 20th century psychic, which is a gift from her mother, who believes the voices of the dead appear on sound recordings) in a way that isn't intrusive. Don't think American Psycho - though the brands are necessary to the story, and knowing Hello Kitty and Prada would be helpful to having a mental picture of the places amd people Cayce sees (and why she reacts as she does), it isn't the same level of brand recognition and worship. It's more disdain and contempt, in a subtle acknowledgement that brands will become more global as the Internet takes over.
Because in the end, it's really a novel about how the Internet has changed the world. Gibson was the first to really get the Internet into literature, and he will always be the guru of how it affects life, even in the 21st Century.

There was something about this latest installment in the Baudelaires' miserable adventures that brought the magic back for me. [Spoiler alert, if you didn't already know.] I am already a huge fan of Daniel Handler's adult novels. I find them clever, witty, and full of twists, in the spirit of Kurt Vonnegut, Joseph Heller and Terry Pratchett (who are, of course, some of my favourite authors).
As Violet, Klaus and Sunny wind (and boy, has the road been winding so far) their way to their final adventure, the books have regained their momentum. I found 11 interesting... but not as engaging as many of the others. I laughed, but not as heartily. I laughed even harder at certain moments in the Hotel Denouement. The clever names were back in force, and the ridiculous references were fresh and funny. And "Snicket" revealed just enough of the secrets of who the VFD are, and what the schism was all about, to have readers dying for Book 13, and what can only be the big reveal.
And you just know it's going to be good - and probably just slightly ridiculous.

I actually finished this a few days ago, and was rather eager to post about it... then I started (and finished) reading John Grisham's The Testament. Man, John Grisham can write some intriguing drivel.

Back to Brick Lane, though. It was like a modern Jane Austen. With immigrants. From Bangladesh. Who are poor and live in council housing in Britain. So really, not that much like Jane Austen, except that it's set in Britain.
But it reminded me of Jane Austen - the female lead, discovering who she really is despite having repressed her own desires and moving with fate. The tensions of Sept. 11, 2001 and terrorism come into play, since the characters in the novel are all Muslims, and they feel the pressure of being different (maintaining purdah, for instance) in their adopted home. The book is intriguing on many levels, particularly the chapters of ill-written letters from the main character's sister - the parallel, but opposite, life. One always did what she was supposed to, the other never did. Which one is happier is debatable.
Ali weaves an interesting look into the post-colonial world of Britain, without coming across as preaching about racism, the immigrant condition or any of the other political topics her novel touches.