Read of the Town: The Circle

I'll admit right off the jump, the cover caught my attention the last time I was inside a Barnes & Noble. It's a pretty simple cover (as you can see below) but the color popped at me and I became intrigued. Not enough to pick it up off the shelf and read the description though. I was on a mission to get a few OTHER books and didn't want to be led astray as I often find myself when I'm inside a bookstore. It wasn't until I got home and I was perusing through my "Books" section of news on Flipboard (the app I mostly use to find out what my next "Read of the Town" should be) that I realized I should have picked it up when my instinct told me so earlier.

Well, I will be picking it up and based on the reviews and description (Big Brother is watching with a little company control and paranoia for good measure) I'll probably get to it before this year ends. This all depends on how quickly my reading habits can go back to their normal pace of reading one book every 4 days.

Anyhow, if you like interesting book covers I suggest picking this book up while you're in a book store and giving the first few pages a turn or just read the description below and judge for yourself just how good this book sounds like it may be.

Summary:

When Mae Holland is hired to work for the Circle, the world’s most powerful internet company, she feels she’s been given the opportunity of a lifetime. The Circle, run out of a sprawling California campus, links users’ personal emails, social media, banking, and purchasing with their universal operating system, resulting in one online identity and a new age of civility and transparency. As Mae tours the open-plan office spaces, the towering glass dining facilities, the cozy dorms for those who spend nights at work, she is thrilled with the company’s modernity and activity. There are parties that last through the night, there are famous musicians playing on the lawn, there are athletic activities and clubs and brunches, and even an aquarium of rare fish retrieved from the Marianas Trench by the CEO. Mae can’t believe her luck, her great fortune to work for the most influential company in the world—even as life beyond the campus grows distant, even as a strange encounter with a colleague leaves her shaken, even as her role at the Circle becomes increasingly public. What begins as the captivating story of one woman’s ambition and idealism soon becomes a heart-racing novel of suspense, raising questions about memory, history, privacy, democracy, and the limits of human knowledge.