Josef Pronek can't decide if he's a Serb or a Muslim or even a man. Instead, he'd "complicated" ...

Nabokov's Appalachian tall tale tears academia to shreds, and provides the meaning of "crapula" ...

Prolific Albanian Kadare turns the screws on the intrigues of the Hoxha regime — without compromising himself.

Hemingway's sentimental Venice flop.

Updike should stick to Rabbits and criticism. Terrorism is a bridge too far, and sometimes silly.

Bill Buford scalds himself in the presence of Mario Batali, but the result makes for appetizing reading.

A murder-mystery as silly as it is... well, silly. Ridley Jones, seeking her "true" identity, gets a surprise.

Muñoz Molina shakes hand with W.G. Sebald in a novel that transubstantiates wartime events into fictional remembrance.

Richard Ford's final entry in the Frank Bascombe trilogy is a triumph of melancholy decency.

Irène Némirovsky's novellas about the French under pressure from the Nazis are deeply impressive.

Romania and the consequences of prewar and postwar exile dominate Paul Bailey's tender work.