The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier

(Vintage, $13.95)

Now available in paperback, Kevin Brockmeier's 2006 novel offers one of the most compelling interpretations of the afterlife that I've ever come across. Elegant and concise, it strikes a nearly perfect balance between simple, myth-like storytelling and weighty philosophies about living, loving, suffering and dying.

According to Brockmeier's premise, people move to another realm when they die, an unnamed city where they carry out basically the same day-to-day grind they did when they were alive. People remain in the city until there's no one left on Earth who remembers them, and then they vanish with no clue of what - if anything- awaits them next.

We soon learn that a global pandemic is killing off most of the world's population, threatening the future of the afterworld and its inhabitants. Every other chapter focuses on Laura Byrd, a woman spared from the plague because she's off on an expedition on the South Pole. Her life is very much in danger, though, when she undertakes a treacherous journey to find her missing colleagues. Back in the city of the dead, just about everybody has some connection to Laura because they're embedded in her memory.