Solar

I didn't read this when it came out because it got poor reviews but it actually was quite fun. It's the story of a rather unlikeable academic who won the Nobel Prize for Physics back in his youth and has been coasting along on his laurels ever since. He is now trying to make money out of the energy crisis. He's been married 5 times and is generally a huge failure. The book pushes him from crisis to crisis until he is spiraling out of control. The tone and action is reminiscent of Kingsley Amis' Lucky Jim, that book by Michael Frayn, Headlong, or something by David Lodge. Considering that Ian McEwan lives in loftier literary circles than these writers maybe this isn't such a great book, but other than a bit of a drag at the end, I really enjoyed it.