AGAINST THE DAY  by Thomas Pynchon '59 (Penguin). Henry James might have had Pynchon's work in mind, instead of Tolstoy's sprawling War and Peace, when he wondered at the meaning of such "large loose baggy monsters." In his first novel since 1997's Mason & Dixon, the reclusive Pynchon explores territory that readers have come to expect from the author of Gravity's Rainbow: fractured history, erudition, and shtick; pop culture references; a vindication of the theory of aether; characters with whimsical names; nonsense songs; and parodies of several literary styles. Covering the period between the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and World War I, the novel's large cast includes anarchists, ruthless mine owners, Bela Lugosi, Nikola Tesla, Groucho Marx, and the Chums of Chance (balloonists straight out of a pulp magazine). As Pynchon himself wrote about the novel, "Let the reader beware."

THE REAL DEAL  by Sandy Weill '55 and Judah S. Kraushaar '79, MBA '80 (Warner Business Books). The investment banker and Cornell trustee emeritus recounts his rise from modest beginnings in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn to partner in the brokerage firm of Carter, Berlind, Potoma & Weill to president of American Express and then CEO and chairman of CitiGroup. Along the way he discusses the importance of his philanthropic support of Carnegie Hall, the National Academy Foundation, and Weill Cornell Medical College.

LIFE,DEATH & BIALYS  by Dylan Schaffer '86 (Bloomsbury). When mystery novelist and criminal defense lawyer Schaffer agreed to take a week-long intensive baking class at the French Culinary Institute with his terminally ill father, he didn't have great expectations. Nonetheless, he learned not only how to make a decent baguette but how to forgive his father for abandoning him and his siblings to care for his mentally ill mother. After the class, father and son continued their dialogue and "came to something like terms" in his father's final days.

GOING TO HEAVEN  by Elizabeth Adams '74 (Soft Skull Press). In 2003, Gene Robinson was consecrated bishop of the Diocese of New Hampshire, the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church. His election nearly caused a schism within Anglicanism, yet it also brought support from Archbishop Desmond Tutu and awards from human rights organizations. This spiritual biography traces Robinson's path from his childhood in Kentucky to the priesthood, and portrays a man who is, he says, "neither the angel nor the devil some would make me out to be."

DIGGING FOR THE TRUTH  by Josh Bernstein '93 (Gotham Books). Bernstein, the host of the History Channel's show "Digging for the Truth" and president and CEO of BOSS, the Boulder Outdoor Survival School, relates his adventures and behind-thescenes difficulties as he learns about Egyptian pyramid builders, searches for the Ark of the Covenant in Ethiopia, retraces the steps of Oetzi the Iceman through the Alps, seeks Inca treasure in the Amazon jungle, researches the megaliths of Stonehenge, explores the ruins of the ancient Sabaean kingdom in Yemen, and follows the Viking trail to North America.