How to start: This novel by Jay McInerney is short, fast-paced and has an ending as satisfying as a pickle with snap.

Favourite quote: "But what you are left with is a premonition of the way your life will fade behind you, like a book you have read too quickly, leaving a dwindling trail of images and emotions, until all you can remember is a name." (page 127)

Tangential: This was Jay McInerney's first novel and if you want to know more about him than the wikipedia entry, there's this article from The Guardian.