In our second annual Fiction Bestseller List feature, our writers temporarily put aside their dogeared copies of Hume and Mann, roll up their sleeves, and dig into the ten bestselling novels in the land as of September 6, 2009 – in the tranquil days before a certain Dan Brown novel began tromping all over that list like Godzilla in downtown Tokyo. Before you spend your hard-earned money at the bookstore, join us in a tour of the way we read now.

John Goodman, John Glover, and Nathan Lane are currently starring on Broadway in Samuel Beckett’s masterpiece; Andrew Martin’s got an aisle seat, and reports back on a surprisingly sunny Waiting for Godot.

Thug or genius? Artist or gangster? In his brief, troubled life – and now in the new movie Notorious – The Notorious B.I.G. was an enigma. Andrew Martin sorts myth from legend.

Before Mexico, Tangier, or even rehab, Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs were deeply involved in a real-life murder plot. Now the book they wrote about it finally gets its day in court and Andrew Martin delivers his literary verdict on And the Hippos Were Boiled in their Tanks.