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Murakami, Haruki. Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman. Knopf. Sept. 2006. c.352p. ISBN 1-4000-4461-6. $25. F Murakami (Kafka on the Shore) is currently the West's most popular Japanese author, and each story [...]

Handler, Daniel. Adverbs. Ecco: HarperCollins. May 2006. c.288p. ISBN 0-06-072441-2. $23.95. F Handler, who as Lemony Snickett writes the 'Series of Unfortunate Events' novels for children, returns to adult fiction [...]

Merrick, Elizabeth. Girly. Demimonde. 2005. c.524p. ISBN 0-9768801-0-5. pap. $19.95. F With her first novel, Merrick (founder and director, Grace Reading Series), editor of the forthcoming Random House anthology This [...]

Baker, Kevin. Strivers Row. HarperCollins. Feb. 2006. c.560p. ISBN 0-06-019583-5 [ISBN 978-0-06-019583-0]. $26.95. F Baker completes his New York trilogy (Dreamland; Paradise Alley) with a penetrating look at World War [...]

di Natale, Silvia. Kuraj. Bloomsbury, dist. by St. Martin's. Jan. 2006. c.433p, tr. from Italian by Carol O'Sullivan & Martin Thom. ISBN 1-5823-4220-2. pap. $15.95. F In a story that [...]

Cruz, Angie. Let It Rain Coffee. S. & S. May 2005. c.256p. ISBN 0-7432-1203-7. $22. F Character matters in Cruz's second novel (after Soledad) about immigrants from the Caribbean. The [...]

* Reisner, Rosalind. Jewish American Literature: A Guide to Reading Interests. Libraries Unlimited: Greenwood. (Genreflecting Advisory Series). 2004. c.360p. ed. by Diana Tixier Herald. index. ISBN 1-56308-984-X. $55. The latest […]

Routledge Press's highly touted Holocaust Literature: An Encyclopedia of Writers and Their Works weighs in at 1,544 pages, dwarfing competitor Oryx Press's 263-page Encyclopedia of Holocaust Literature. While the Oryx [...]

WHORTON, JAMES, JR. Frankland. Free Pr: S. & S. 2005. c.288p. ISBN 0-7432-44486. $23. F Whorton (Approximately Heaven) sets his zany Southern comedy in the East Tennessee region once slated [...]

LESTER, JULIUS. The Autobiography of God. St. Martin's. Nov. 2004. c.256p. ISBN 0-312-28820-4. $23.95. F The manifestations of true evil are explored in this skillfully crafted novel about a contemporary […]

* MCCOWN, CLINT. The Weatherman. Graywolf. Sept. 2004. c.240p. ISBN 1-55597-405-8. $23. F Taylor Wakefield is the latest well-meaning loser from McCown. Like the protagonists in War Memorials and The […]

CHAN, JEFFERY PAUL. Eat Everything Before You Die: A Chinaman in the Counterculture. Univ. of Washington. Oct. 2004. c.304p. ISBN 0-295-98436-8. pap. $22.50. F First novelist Chan (coeditor, The Big […]

JILLETTE, PENN. Sock. Griffin: St. Martin's. Jul. 2004. c.240p. ISBN 0-312-32805-2. F Take one serial killer who is looking for God in all the wrong places and one slightly demented […]

Lagasse, Mary Helen. The Fifth Sun. Curbstone, dist. by Consortium Apr. 2004. c.336p. ISBN 1-931896-05-4. pap. $15. F Mercedes Vasconcelos Ibanez moves from tragedy to tragedy as she struggles for […]

Knopf. Apr. 2004. c.360p. ISBN 0-375-41375-8. $25.95. F This manic first novel, about the wacky goings-on in small Lava Landing, CA, is written in the form of la loteria, a [...]

Soft Skull. 2003. c.144p. ISBN 1-932360-06-9. pap. $12. F Stern's poetic depiction of codependency enhances this heartbreaking story of a young college student who becomes the girlfriend of an alcoholic [...]

Japan has given the West the serenity of the Zen garden and the warrior ethic of the Samurai, the beauty of ikebana and the violence of graphic manga. In fiction, [...]

HarperCollins. Jan. 2004. c.496p. ISBN 0-06-057122-5. $24.95. F The Nazi persecution of the Roma (Gypsies) during World War II is an aspect of the Holocaust rarely explored in fiction, but [...]

Canongate, dist. by Grove/Atlantic. Oct. 2003. c.277p. ISBN 1-84195-460-8. $23. F Published to critical acclaim in England, this first novel is a satirical look at contemporary America viewed through the [...]

Leapfrog. Sept. 2003. c.206p. LC 2003001639. ISBN 0-9679520-0-X. pap. $14.95. F Much has been written about the problems facing children of Holocaust survivors. In this quirky novel, Raphael (Little Miss [...]

St. Martin's. Aug. 2003. c.256p. ISBN 0-312-30915-5. $23.95. F While the machinations of matchmakers have long been a staple of fiction, King's debut novel puts a fresh spin on the [...]

St. Martin's. Jul. 2003. c.272p. ISBN 0312-30693-8. $23.95. F New Zealand author Johnson (Belief) has penned a quirky novel set in colonial Fiji as World War I ends' and the [...]

Viking. Jul. 2003. c.436p. ISBN 0-670-03192-5. $24.95. F When 14-year-old Lakshmi marries a widower of 37, she believes that she is leaving her Sri Lankan village for a life of […]

When the former Yugoslavia disintegrated in front of our eyes during the 1990s, readers of fiction from the region should not have been surprised. Novel after novel had as a […]

Atlantic Monthly. Apr. 2003. c.448p. ISBN 0-87113-870-0. $24. F Hough's debut novel, winner of Canada's Trillium Book Award, is a fictionalized biography of legendary female tiger trainer Mabel Stark, whose […]

Nan A. Talese: Doubleday. Feb. 2003. c.208p. LC 2002066846. ISBN 0-385-50408-X. $23.95. F Martin (Mary Reilly) re-creates antebellum New Orleans, examining how slavery affects owners as well as slaves. Manon […]

Thomas Dunne Bks: St. Martin's. Dec. 2002. c.272p. ISBN 0-312-28418-7. $23.95. F Drawing inspiration from The Arabian Nights, Horch has penned a luminous first novel. Set in Baghdad during the [...]

Although modern Israel has existed in a constant state of military tension since its birth in 1948, most of its finest fiction looks inward and backward in attempts to define [...]

Overlook, dist. by Penguin/Putnam. (Sewanee Writers'). Nov. 2002. c.236p. LC 2002072465. ISBN 1-58567-312-9. $26.95. F This first novel brings to life the Cajun community of the Louisiana bayous. The Bueches […]

Other. Nov. 2002. c.174p. tr. by Marjolin de Jager. ISBN 1-59051-038-0. $22. F The narrator of this slender, poetic novel is Ahmed, a Palestinian terrorist. As he awaits death in [...]

Doubleday. Sept. 2002. c.256p. LC 2001052979. ISBN 0-385-50447-0. $24.95. F Life is hell for people in Palahniuk's fictional world (Fight Club; Choke). His latest cast of miserable characters includes hack [...]

HarperCollins. Oct. 2002. c.688p. ISBN 0-06-019582-7. $26.95. F In his follow-up to Dreamland, Baker continues to bring New York City history to life. This time he focuses on the Draft [...]

Farrar. Jun. 2002. c.352p. ISBN 0-374-14975-5. $24. F Skvorecky (Dvorak in Love, etc.) has lived through some of the most egregious times in European history. In this semiautobiographical collection of [...]

Life on Castro's island paradise is precarious at best, and the themes of politics and exile are never far from the center of a Cuban novel. This preoccupation could lead [...]

* Bunin, Ivan. Sunstroke: Selected Stories of Ivan Bunin. Ivan R. Dee. Apr. 2002. c.208p, tr. from Russian by Graham Hettlinger. ISBN 156663-426-1. $25. F Bunin was the 1933 Nobel [...]

Unger, David. Life in the Damn Tropics. Syracuse Univ. (Library of Modern Jewish Literature). May 2002. c.240p. ISBN 0-8156-0737-7. $34.95. F Marcos Eltaleph, the middle-aged narrator-hero of Unger's first novel, [...]

Before Pearl Buck, most Western readers knew China through dime novels where stereotypes like Dr. Fu Manchu lurked in opium dens. Buck's depiction of the Chinese as human beings who [...]

* Sobin, Gustaf. In Pursuit of a Vanishing Star. Norton. Jan. 2002. c.192p. ISBN 0-393-04204-9. $23.95. F Sobin is an American expatriate poet living in Provence whose previous novels (The [...]

Following the events of September 11, it is now more important than ever to understand the world of Islam. While many Americans assume this is a monolithic universe inhabited by [...]

Sole, Robert. The Alexandria Semaphore. Harvill, dist. by Farrar. 2001. 294p. tr. from French by John Brownjohn. ISBN 1-86046-888-8. $25. F This is the third installment of Soles novelistic memoirs [...]

Kliment, Alexandr. Living Parallel. Catbird, dist. by Independent Pubs. Group. Feb. 2002. c.222p. tr. from Czech by Robert Wechsler. ISBN 0-945774-51-6. $21. F The tiny Czech Republic continues to astound [...]

* Napoleon, Landon J. ZigZag. Holt. Jun. 1999. c.273p. LC 98-42408. ISBN 0-8050-6048-0. $24. F ZigZag, this novel's narrator, is a mentally handicapped young man with a talent for remembering [...]

*Williamson, Eric Miles. East Bay Grease. Picador: St. Martin's. Mar. 1999. c.256p. ISBN 0-312-19861-2. $23. F Never has coming of age been depicted in a more harrowing narrative than in [...]

Brown, Rebecca. The Dogs: A Modern Bestiary. City Lights. 1998. c.166p. ISBN 0-87286-344-1. pap. $10.95. F Brown's unnamed narrator finds her life invaded by a pack of dogs. In a [...]

Keifetz, Mandy. Corrido. Fleabites. 1998. c.239p. LC 97-95371. ISBN 0-9662835-0-3. pap. $12. F Careening from the dying southern New Mexico town of Mapache to New York's Lower East Side and [...]

Ryman, Geoff. 253: The Print Remix. Griffin: St. Martin's. Sept. 1998. c.384p. ISBN 0-312-18295-3. pap. $14.95. F Ryman's print version of a novel originally published in cyberspace often seems like [...]

* Swados, Elizabeth. Flamboyant. Picador: St. Martin's. Sept. 1998. c.244p. ISBN 0-312-19547-8. $21. F Noted playwright Swados's first novel, The Myth Man (LJ 10/1/94), examined the claustrophobic existence of a [...]

Chang, Leonard. Dispatches from the Cold. Black Heron. Jul. 1998. c.282p. ISBN 0-930773-49-7. $23.95. F Chang, whose first novel, The Fruit 'N Food (Black Heron, 1996) examined tensions between African [...]

* Diaz, Tony. The Aztec Love God. FC2, dist. by Northwestern Univ. Jun. 1998. c.150p. ISBN 1-57366-036-1. pap. $12.95. F Diaz, who won the Nilon Award for Excellence in Minority [...]

McGarrity, Michael. Scribner. Jun. 1998. c.314p. LC 9751142. ISBN 0-684-85076-1. $22. F Kevin Kerney, a former law enforcement officer, is drafted by his good friend Andy Baca, the newly appointed [...]