The Genius in My Basement- Book Review

Alexander Masters is not an author I am quite familiar with. But the title aroused my curiosity. The full title is actually 'Simon- The genius in my Basement'.

This is a quirky tale of a person who finds and writes about a nerdy guy who lives below his house. Another funny thing about this book is that it has a number of drawings to explain what happens when you turn geometrical figures around. For example, what happens when you turn a square to the right. This is depicted by giving the square two feet at its bottom, so you know what it looks like after a turn-or two, or three, because the feet sticking out are rotating.

Anyway, I will provide a couple of quotes from the book instead of giving too much away-not that there is a mystery in it.

1. The object of the tidy housekeeper is to remove all proof that he is a functioning organism.

2. Simon is, verbally, one of the most adept and playful people I know- as long as he doesn't have to speak. Or use metaphor or comment on photographs. This is after asking Simon for a comment on one and drawing a blank.

3. Simon's brother in the book writes about 365 ways to change the world. One of which is...start drinking. ..give up sewage brands like Heineken or Budweiser-brew your own beer using oysters and wild rice.

You get the drift, I suppose..