I have read a lot of science fiction in my brief time on this planet. Much of it is well-written, yet as the genre matures, "old stand-bys" have emerged such as androids, sentient programs, space-cathedrals, and alien races either bent on destroying us, or more recently, resisting our colonization (apropos topics change with the times). Nick Harkaway's The Gone Away World includes none of the above. In fact, a good portion of the novel reads as "straight" fiction (albeit strange) before the science surprises us by wiping out most of reality. Not the world itself - we already have bombs that do that - but the very informational structure of the world; and there is fall-out. With this "Gone Away World" as the backdrop, Harkaway introduces a well-realized cast of characters (military spooks, mimes, a kung fu teacher, ninjas, the French, a few pirates), and despite the calculatedly wacky line-up, resists slipping into the easy tropes of free-wheelin' humorous fiction. Instead, he crafts a world that allows his careful and wry commentary on love, politics, fear, and culture to illuminate the world-as-it-is. Adventurous, romantic, surprising, and sharp, The Gone Away World is an incredibly exciting first novel. -- Trevor

Watchmen is not only the best graphic novel out there, but also one of the most brilliantly conceived and executed pieces of fiction I've ever encountered. Rorschach is a paranoid vigilante who believes someone is offing masked adventurers and his persistence uncovers much more than he (or we) ever could have imagined. Two decades of history, from the end of WWII to the depths of the Cold War, memoirs of former crusaders, interviews, psychiatric documents, and scientific memoranda intersperse the story panels and add a level of complexity and meta-textual mold-breaking unmatched before or since. The moral dilemmas faced by the myriad characters and ethical questions raised are humongous in scope, and just as important now as when they were originally penned in 1984. -- Grant

As the light grows thin and the air crisp with the coming of an autumn eve, I can think of no greater pleasure than to settle down with a copy of Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. It is the immortal tale of Cathy and Heathcliff - two lovers whose passions mirror the windswept tumult of their childhood home. Heathcliff is magnetic, dark, and brooding - a gypsy boy found on the streets of Liverpool, much abused for his lowly birth. Cathy is beautiful, wild, and imperious. Together they brave the darkened moors, and are forever at odds with, enthralled by, and ultimately separated by the pampered inhabitants of nearby Thrushcross Grange. That is until Heathcliff returns as a young gentleman, to extract his revenge and reclaim the only thing he has ever loved. Pure drama! -- Colin

Contemporary architecture, with its applied physics and abstract forms, is often less practical than the shelters created by the animal kingdom. The recognition of this fact and the growing sustainability revolution have led the artists and architects in Natural Architecture to build stunning and functional structures made entirely from the surrounding environment. Participating artists such as Olafur Eliasson, Patrick Dougherty, and Edward Ng have used twigs, pebbles, straw, and any other nearby materials from the natural world to build dwellings that allow the living landscape to not only coexist with them but also to take over and ultimately digest them. If you desire hope to offset the enormity of Alan Weisman's The World Without Us, Alessandro Rocca's beautiful book is an excellent place to start. -- Jon