Small World

Nominated for the Booker Prize, this parody of academic life follows a huge cast of scholarly characters who travel the world from one conference to another. Sleeping through seminars, scheming for better teaching positions, going to bed with fellow conferees, these men and women seem to use every organ and part of the body except the mind. ""The real fun of the book is the author's razor-sharp prose and wit, which are turned more or less good-naturedly on his fellow academics,'' PW stated. Lodge is a professor of modern English literature at the University of Birmingham. (April)