Bangkok, Thailand -- first stop for the hordes of rootless young Westerners traveling in Southeast Asia. On Richard's first night there, in a low-budget guest house, a fellow traveler leaves Richard a meticulously drawn map to "the Beach."

The Beach is the subject of a legend among young travelers in Asia: a lagoon hidden from the sea, with white sand and coral gardens, freshwater falls surrounded by jungle, plants untouched for a thousand years. There, it is rumored, a carefully selected few have settled in a communal Eden.

Richard sets off with a young French couple to find The Beach. When they do, it is as beautiful and idyllic as it is said to be. Yet over time it becomes clear that this paradise has troubling, even deadly, undercurrents.

Spellbinding and hallucinogenic, The Beach by Alex Garland -- a national bestseller -- is a highly accomplished and suspenseful novel that fixates on a generation in their twenties who long for an unruined world.