Best of the Year in Fiction..So Far (in alphabetical order)

In this sexy, fast-paced literary thriller, Unger takes readers on a breathtaking ride in which a young New York writer's good deed has terrible consequences and leaves her running for her life.

From the author of the widely praised "The Truth About Celia" comes a mesmerizing new work that imagines the world of the afterlife and its stark relation to the world of the living.

From the award-winning author of "Liars and Saints" comes a riveting sequel of love, sex, secrets, guilt, and forgiveness, which follows the fascinating Santerre clan to Argentina.

WHO IS THE FUTURIST? He once fired a man on Take Your Daughter to Work Day. He once was asked by theNew York Timesto write an Op-Ed piece on the death of literacy in America and had his assistant ghostwrite it. He once began his week ringing the bell at the New York Stock Exchange and ended it giving a speech about the future of greed to a group of seminary students. He once wrote the introduction to a book he never read,Beehive Management: How Life in the Honeycomb Translates to Winning in the Workplace. He once was an adviser for HeresWhatIDoMom.com, a company that made videos that explained people’s nebulous jobs to their confused parents. He once took batting practice with the New York Mets, pretending not to notice the eight-year-old boy with leukemia from the Make-A-Wish Foundation whom the PR director let him cut in front of because he had a plane to catch. He once gave a rousing motivational talk at the base of a spouting fountain before the West Coast sales force of an erectile dysfunction pharmaceutical maker.Yates is a Futurist. Which is to say he makes a very good living flying around the world dispensing premonitory wisdom, aka prepackaged bullshit, to world governments, corporations, and global leadership conferences. He is an optimist by trade and a cynic by choice. He’s the kind of man who can give a lecture on successive days to a leading pesticide manufacturer and the Organic Farmers of America, and receive standing ovations at both. But just as the American Empire is beginning to fray around the edges, so too is Yates’s carefully scripted existence. On the way to the Futureworld Conference in Johannesburg, he opens a handwritten note from his girlfriend, saying she’s left him for a sixth-grade history teacher. Then he witnesses a soccer riot in which a number of South Africans are killed, to the chagrin of the South African PR people at Futureworld. Sparked by a heroic devastation of his minibar and inspired by the rookie hooker sent to his hotel room courtesy of his hosts, Yates delivers a spectacularly career-ending speech at Futureworld, which leads to a sound beating, a meeting with some quasi-governmental creeps, and a hazy mission to go around the world answering the question: Why does everyone hate us? Thus begins an absolutely original novel that is fueled by equal parts subversive satire, genuine physical fear, and heartfelt moral anguish. From the hideously ugly Greenlander nymphomaniacal artist to the gay male model spy to the British corporate magnate with a taste for South Pacific virgin sacrifice rituals,The Futuristmanages to be wildly entertaining and deadly serious at the same time. It’s the novel we all deserve.

When the Cardinal next in line to succeed the ailing Pope turns up dead, Scotland Yard's finest detective, Charlie Northern, finds himself on a plane to Rome with little more than a full pack of cigarettes. With the help of a priest, a coroner and one beautiful lawyer, Northern must uncover the facts in a place legendary for keeping its secrets. There are forces at work in The Holy See that would see the truth remain hidden -- forces ancient and dark, with a power not seen in this world for millennia, and an agenda that will leave Northern's world more shattered than he could have ever foreseen.

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No summary available.

In 1940, several families and individuals are thrown together as they flee Paris on the eve of the Nazi invasion and struggle to stay alive and grieve for the life they once knew.

A collection of short works by the author of The Stories (So Far) of Deborah Eisenberg includes the tales of a group of friends whose efforts to acquire a luxurious Manhattan sublet are halted by the September 11 attacks, a teacher's Roman holiday in the wake of her husband's life-threatening illness, and a brother's painful love for his schizophrenic sister.

A cloth bag containing ten copies of the title, that may also include a folder with miscellaneous notes, discussion questions, biographical information, and reading lists to assist book group discussion leaders.