Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan

Holy mackerel, the authors of Gingerbread and Boy Meets Boy have written a novel together.
And guess what, it is ten kinds of awesome.

They take turns writing chapters, and the whole thing takes place in one night, where two high-school age club kids in New York meet and fall for each other while listening to agressively hip punk bands.

Oh yes, and they meet because Nick is trying to make his old girlfriend jealous, so he asks Norah to be his GF for five minutes, and she thinks it's ridiculous but they kiss...and oh my god, is it true love?

Well, unfortunately my advance copy was missing every other one of the last ten pages, so I'm not sure, but yes, I think it is.

And of course, bonus points for the Thin Man reference.

Oh, and speaking of the Thin Man, did you know that the character of Nora Charles was supposedly based on Lillian Hellman?

Accelerando by Charles Stross

Okay, so the only thing you really need to know about this book is:

SPACE LOBSTERS.

People always come up to me and want to know about the book I'm reading, and then I have to stop and give them this whole explanation, which is kind of annoying.
But with this book, all I had to say is "well, there are these space lobsters..."
and the person would be all, "Ohh. Okay."
and go away.
Awesome!

I was a little worried about this book after my Princess of Roumania experience, because all the same people liked it.
And a bunch of other people said that they didn't really get it, which is understandable because it's kind of weird, but if you're the kind of person who reads Vernor Vinge or BoingBoing.net a lot, you will totally get it. Trust me.

The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier

Here's one where I thought, "Finally, a really good book!"

Basically, after you die you go to this sort of intermediate place, where you live kind of like on Earth but you can pretty much do whatever you want. Most people have jobs and just live regular lives, and you stay there until there's no one left alive who remembers you.

So what happens is, there's a global pandemic, and the inbetween place starts filling up with people since so many are dying, but then it empties out because everyone who remembered them has also died. Finally, there are only a few thousand people left in the city and they figure out that they all knew the same woman, somehow, and she must be the only person left alive. Which she is, since she is stranded in Antarctica.

Cool, right?

There's more to the story, of course. Check it out.