In an email after he'd left town, he suggested I borrow his copy of new writer Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife. Though it is not, as Steve suggested, "the best Sci-Fi book ever written", it is a hell of a good read, and one of the most unusual science fiction novels I've come across in a long time.
Told from the points of view of Henry DeTamble and his wife, Clare Abshire, this writer manages to brilliantly jump from one view-point to the other - and from one point in time to another and another - all the while advancing the tragic narrative with a master's control of the writer's craft.
This is a time travel story like none other, and all of you should rush out to your local independent bookstore and pick it up. It's a moving, complex and very human piece of work.