Ryan Bingham&#8217;s job as a Career Transition Counselor&#8211;he fires people&#8211;has kept him airborne for years. Although he has come to despise his line of work, he has come to love the culture of what he calls &#8220;Airworld,&#8221; finding contentment within pressurized cabins, anonymous hotel rooms, and a wardrobe of wrinkle-free slacks. With a letter of resignation sitting on his boss&#8217;s desk, and the hope of a job with a mysterious consulting firm, Ryan Bingham is agonizingly close to his ultimate goal, his Holy Grail: one million frequent flier miles. But before he achieves this long-desired freedom, conditions begin to deteriorate. <br><br>With perception, wit, and wisdom, <b>Up in the Air</b><i> </i>combines brilliant social observation with an acute sense of the psychic costs of our rootless existence, and confirms Walter Kirn as one of the most savvy chroniclers of American life.