Can a book with references to Starbucks, iBooks and Hummers become a classic? Can anything transcend its time now? Or is any novel about our tumultuous era bound to be a blip on the radar screen -- the equivalent of 20 seconds of stray footage on the Net? "Pattern Recognition" considers these issues with appealing care and, given that this best-selling author is his own kind of franchise, surprising modesty. Gibson's novel succeeds in being both up-to-the-nanosecond and also, in Cayce's highest praise, "curiously difficult to date." NYT reviews the new Gibson novel. You can also listen to audio of Gibson reading an excerpt from the book (approximately 13 minutes). 'Pattern Recognition': The Coolhunter | 
