Emmaus — Alessandro Baricco

The secular and the pious. The rich and the poor. Those with "a capacity for destiny" and those who "cannot afford it." Emmaus is a world of stark contrasts, one in which four young men -- all from proud, struggling families, and all lusting after Andre, a hyper- sexual woman -- are goaded from adolescence to manhood in a torrent of exploits and crises, sexual awakenings and morbid depressions, naivety and fatalism.

A brilliant portrait of the perils and uncertainties of youth and faith, Emmaus is a remarkable novel from one of the very best writers in Europe.