Books like Peace

Congratulations on your purchase/borrowing/piracy of "Peace" by Gene Wolfe! We who have come before you hope you will be very, very satisfied with your purchase, and will come back to it for years to come! Before you enjoy your copy for the first (or second) time, here are some helpful tips:1. Persevere through the first chapter. Although the first few pages of Peace are some of the best in the novel, there's a scene that takes place in a garden near the beginning of the book that can be a doozy. There's lots of characters you haven't been introduced to yet, and most of them are coming up with nicknames for each other, anyway. Don't sweat it - this scene is designed to make more sense the second time you read it. Once the party ends and Weer and his doctor come back, you'll be on firmer ground.2. Whenever Weer, or someone in one of Weer's flashbacks, tells a fairy tale, you should be paying attention. Stack the fairy tales end to end: they're the Weers' family album as seen through a dark mirror. 3. There's a lot of recurring imagery that crops up throughout the book: dragons, skulls, swords. I don't really have a point here, I just thought it was cool to notice how they show up in clever ways, like the recurring phrases in Infinite Jest.4. If you get to around the halfway point of the book and start getting very creeped out, you're doing it right.5. Once you're finished reading the book - read it again! Or, at least, read the first few pages again. Weer's going back to the beginning, why not you too? Pay attention to the very, very beginning: there's some fun stuff there. Maybe reread that dinner party scene you skimmed the first time. 6. If you didn't get it, found it overrated and pretentious, or even boring, don't worry: Neil Gaiman did too, the first time he read it. He came around. (Side note: if you're reading the 2012 paperback reissue with the Gaiman afterword, wait until you finish the novel to read it). Neil enjoyed his second reading of Peace much more than his first, so if you feel as if you understood most of the novel after a single reading, congratulations: you are smarter than Neil Gaiman. You probably already knew that.We hope your experience with Peace will be a pleasant/unpleasant one. Tell your friends.