HOTEL WORLD (2002)

You open this Booker Prize-shortlisted novel and see a blurb accurately declaring it ''specifically designed to be read by a generation brought up on theory.'' Maybe you can bear, after such enticement, to keep turning pages, and you discover the work of an author unashamed to alert us that her title is ''a metaphysical pun.'' The book relays some happenings at the Global Hotel: The ghost of a chambermaid lingers in the lobby; one guest, a reporter, gives a chunk of money to a homeless woman, then orders room service; and so on. Smith's prose is both pallid and overheated: ''She imagines her lungs creaking and hissing, snarled up in blood and muscle like bad telephone lines, already outmoded anyway, and as if someone was trying to wire-up some place that just couldn't be wired up.'' You can check out any time you like.