Soon to be readThe new novel Jennifer Government by Max Barry got a rave in the Times book review this past weekend, and I was affected: I just ordered it from Amazon. It also helps when the review is by someone I'm familiar with, in this case, Rob Walker who writes about marketing for Slate.com. A satire about an extreme marketing scheme in a world dominated by corporations, Nike will assasinate kids at shoe stores in order to make it seem like a new kind of Nikes are the hottest thing and thus drive sales. Enter Jennifer Government, a federal agent, to stop the madness. Of course, I'm not reading it just because there's a federal agent named Jennifer. I'm also reading it because the movie rights were bought by Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney's production company. I hope it will become a movie. I rather "Jennifer Government" be a recent movie with the name Jennifer in the title, rather than Jennifer 8.