A British family, the Smarts, on summer vacation, find their domestic façade irreparably ruffled by the appearance of a charismatic woman, Amber, who insinuates herself into their lives, hearts, and minds. In THE ACCIDENTAL, as in her eerie and brilliant HOTEL WORLD, Ali Smith proves to be a master of assuming the voices of myriad characters and seeing the world through their biased eyes. Employing a delightfully subjective third-person perspective, Smith opens up the inner-workings of the Smart family: the didactic and philandering father, the anxious and self-denying mother, and the two marvelously off-kilter kids. All of them seem drawn to and oddly deluded by Amber, and, at times, Smith renders Amber's actions from multiple viewpoints in a style reminiscent of RASHOMON. Her treatment of the characters is like a brilliant autopsy: precise, unsettling, and, in the end, a revelation.

Jean-François Revel, a renowned French critic whose WITHOUT MARX OR JESUS was a bestseller in the United States in the early 1970s, addresses the issue of anti-Americanism among the French (and among the French intelligentsia in particular). Revel takes a conservative position, and accuses the French Left of thinly veiled attacks on capitalism.

Two 12-year-old girls orchestrate an unlikely romance between a mermaid named Aquamarine and a shy bookworm named Raymond.

In the early 1970s, Gillian Brauer, a college student in Massachusetts, falls under the spell of her English professor and his wife, becoming involved with them not only sexually but in other ways. At the same time, an arsonist is loose on campus. And years later, Gillian, on a visit to the Louvre, sees a work of art that recalls the events of those years and forces her to remember things that were better forgotten.

In the early 1970s, Gillian Brauer, a college student in Massachusetts, falls under the spell of her English professor and his wife, becoming involved with them not only sexually but in other ways. At the same time, an arsonist is loose on campus. And years later, Gillian, on a visit to the Louvre, sees a work of art that recalls the events of those years and forces her to remember things that were better forgotten.