*The New York Times Book Review* called Neal Stephenson’s most recent novel electrifying and hilarious. but if you want to know Stephenson was doing twenty years before he wrote the epic *Cryptonomicon* , it’s back-to-school time. *Back to The Big U* , that is, a hilarious send-up of American college life starring after years our of print, *The Big U* is required reading for anyone interested in the early work of this singular writer.