From William Boyd, a World War II espionage/love-story and mother-daughter story that actually works.

Forget the bad reviews, this overlooked Amis cop story actually has great pace and a killer coda.

Jimmy Dean youth, France of the 1960s, French girls and bistros — Salter takes it all in on the run.

Ryu Murakami is as astute as the "other" Murakami — except his characters have a death wish.

Bolaño rough and wistful stories are about men made remote from their country.

Abe's protagonist wanders aimlessly through Tokyo, seeing outside from the inside of a cardboard box. A masterpiece of alienation.

Andreï Makine's interesting premise about dead Stalinism and incipient love rarely finds its center.

Lucy Grealy transcends victimization in her cancer narrative. She fought the disease for 18 years.

Christa Wolf has a knack for opposing nuclear-age culture with metaphors that work.

Tomorrow is not tonight, but that's what the novel is about. Ponderously so. An unusually scant work from Swift.

Martin Amis, in his Martin Martinovich guise, goes for gulags and high crimes in this novel of imagined Soviet-ness.