What's the Name of That Book??? discussion
This topic is about
The Word Exchange
SOLVED: Adult Fiction
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SOLVED. Dystopian genre, missing person. [s] [The Word Exchange]
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Lobstergirl wrote: "Set in any particular place (country, region, city)? Real place or fictional place?"I think it may have taken place in a large city but fictitious. I got the impression it was something akin to NYC or Chicago.
Could it be The Word Exchange?“In the not-so-distant future, the forecasted “death of print” has become a reality. Bookstores, libraries, newspapers, and magazines are things of the past, and we spend our time glued to handheld devices called Memes that not only keep us in constant communication but also have become so intuitive that they hail us cabs before we leave our offices, order takeout at the first growl of a hungry stomach, and even create and sell language itself in a marketplace called the Word Exchange.
Anana Johnson works with her father, Doug, at the North American Dictionary of the English Language (NADEL), where Doug is hard at work on the last edition that will ever be printed. Doug is a staunchly anti-Meme, anti-tech intellectual who fondly remembers the days when people used email (everything now is text or videoconference) to communicate—or even actually spoke to one another, for that matter. One evening, Doug disappears from the NADEL offices, leaving a single written clue: ALICE. It’s a code word he devised to signal if he ever fell into harm’s way. And thus begins Anana’s journey down the proverbial rabbit hole . . .
Joined by Bart, her bookish NADEL colleague, Anana’s search for Doug will take her into dark basements and subterranean passageways; the stacks and reading rooms of the Mercantile Library; and secret meetings of the underground resistance, the Diachronic Society. As Anana penetrates the mystery of her father’s disappearance and a pandemic of decaying language called “word flu” spreads, The Word Exchange becomes a cautionary tale that is at once a technological thriller and a meditation on the high cultural costs of digital technology.”
@Alyssa - Yes that is it! Thank you!
- This book was written probably in the past 10 years.
- It seems to take place in the not too distant future.
- Near the start of the book there is a woman whose boss (or father?) goes missing but he left some clues in his office and she finds some of these clues. Possibly a recording or something on his computer? I seem to remember he was somewhat paranoid?
- Did they both work in some kind of archive?
- In the book seems that not a lot of people read or know how to write anymore.
I am not sure if this is enough info.