Tinkers by Paul Harding (Bellevue Literary Press, 192 pages, $15). The alternating stories of a dying clockmaker and his tinker father crackle with a quiet intensity. The entire book is written in the elegaic mood of Virginia Woolf's "Time Passes" section of "To the Lighthouse." - Brigitte Frase
I Do Not Come to You by Chance by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani (Hyperion, 416 pages, $15.99). A rich, lively novel about a young Nigerian man who gets entangled in the world of the "419ers" -- the con artists behind e-mail scams. In Nwaubani's capable hands the characters are complex, and the backdrop of Nigeria is vivid and colorful. - Laurie Hertzel
A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick (Algonquin Books, 291 pages, $23.95) It is eternally winter in this novel, set in Wisconsin in the early 1900s, and with the snow and cold come isolation and danger. Ralph Truitt has sent away for a mail-order bride, but when she steps off the train she is not the person he had expected. A haunting read about obsession and love. - L.H.
The Help by Kathryn Stockett (Amy Einhorn Books, 444 pages, $24.95). Narrated by three unlikely heroes -- two black maids who never set out to rock the boat, and a white aristocrat -- it's a tale of brutality and betrayal as well as courage as the three set out to publish anonymous stories that will expose how the town's elite treat "the help." - Jackie Crosby
Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada, translated by Michael Hofmann (Melville House, 544 pages, $27). This World War II novel is so powerful that it almost hums with electricity. It is the story of Otto and Anna Quangel, a working-class Berlin couple whose world crashes down when they receive word that their only son has been killed during the invasion of France. - Michael J. Bonafield
The Frozen Thames by Helen Humphreys (Delacorte, 183 pages, $22). Forty vignettes -- fiction, but based on fact -- about the 40 times in history that the Thames River has frozen over. Beautifully illustrated, beautifully written, it is a testament to how nature can change everything, if only briefly. - L.H.
Brooklyn by Colm Toibin (Scribner, 256 pages, $25). Out of small details Toibin creates an enormous interior life of his protagonist, a young Irish woman who emigrates to the United States in the 1950s. The book lulls you into quietude and a sense of security that is ultimately shattered. - John Freeman
Benny & Shrimp by Katarina Mazetti, translated by Sarah Death (Penguin Paperback, 209 pages, $14). The unlikeliness of the pairing of farmer Benny and librarian Shrimp is evident from the unlikeliness of their meeting: on a bench in a cemetery. A bestseller in Sweden, this bittersweet tale looks at how love opens doors -- even while other factors conspire to slam those same doors shut. - L.H.
