Library Science September book club pick | A Vulture most anticipated book of the fallOne of The New York Times' 24 works of fiction to read this fall | A Guardian best translated fiction pickA Town & Country must-read fall book"Epic . . . Brash and provocative . . . [A] riveting exploration of feminism and sexism . . . Readers will be awed." ―Publishers Weekly (starred review)"Engrossing . . . Full of emotional suspense." ―Pamela Druckerman, Financial TimesThe French novel taking the world by storm: an ultracontemporary Dangerous Liaisons about sex, feminism, and addiction.Dear Dickhead, I read your post on Insta. You're like a pigeon shitting on my shoulder as you flap past. It's shitty and unpleasant. Waah, waah, waah, I'm a pissy little pantywaist, no one loves me so I whimper like a Chihuahua in the hope someone will notice me....

Part social epic, part punk-rock thriller, writer/filmmaker Virginie Despentes's Vernon Subutex trilogy continues the Man Booker International Prize shortlisted sprawling tale of an ex-record shop clerk's celebrity fortunes and misfortunes.Rock star Alex Bleach might be dead, but he has a secret. It's a secret that concerns several people, but the only person who can unlock it is Vernon Subutex, former record shop proprietor turned homeless messiah and guru, last seen hallucinating and feverish on a bench. He has tapes of Alex that will shake the world. The hunt is on, and the wolves are closing in.Meanwhile, the cast of lovers and killers in Vernon's orbit is in violent disarray. Aïcha wants to know the truth behind the death of her mother, the porn star Vodka Satana. And if she finds the bastards responsible, she wants to make them pay, whatever Céleste thinks of her plan. Céleste wants Aïcha to get a grip and stop hanging around with Subutex's...

Stunning Claudine and gloomy Pauline pretend to be one person so that Claudine can be famous, but just as things take off, Claudine commits suicide. Pauline hatches a new scheme, taking on her dead sister's identity, inhabiting her apartment, and reading her emails—slowly realizing the cost of femininity is to dazzle on the outside while rotting on the inside.

In a wrecked modern version of a romance novel, acclaimed French writer Virginie Despentes pokes at the simultaneous ecstasy and banality of love in an age of psychiatry and punk.Gloria lives in seething rage, lashing out at everyone—particularly, a string of bewildered boyfriends—at the local bar. But when her latest explosion leaves her out on the street, she unexpectedly runs into famed television personality Eric Muir. Incidentally, he's also her teenage boyfriend, and the one who started it all.Once upon a time, Gloria and Eric met while institutionalized, and then became a mascot couple for those homeless and high on a noisy mix of drugs, music, and counterculture. Now, twenty years later, Gloria is enamored by youthful love resurrected and determined to immortalize their story by writing a screenplay. Whisked away to Paris, she's transformed from a provincial loose cannon into an urbane party guest. But navigating life and love isn't any easier...

Valentine, the troubled daughter of a well-off but dysfunctional Parisian family, vanishes on her way to school. Inexperienced private detective Lucie Toledo is hired to find the missing teenager, and enlists the help of a formidable agent with a past, known to her friends as the Hyena. Their quest, from Paris to Barcelona and back, uncovers a rich cast of characters whose paths have crossed Valentine's, leading to an alarming climax.Part political thriller, part road-movie, part romance, the latest novel by subversive writer and film-maker Virginie Despentes won the Prix Renaudot 2010 for the pitiless gaze it directs at society in the age of the internet.