A disgraced professor finds himself able to overhear the therapy sessions in the office next door, and a young woman’s occluded journey into her family history becomes his obsession -- and ours. Ellen Ullman’s novel is a haunted and haunting vision of madness, shot through with grace. One of our picks for Best Fiction of 2012.

This Swedish debut might recall the work of Tom Robbins and J. P. Donleavy's The Ginger Man -- if Donleavy's hero had been a reprobate centenarian. Bolting from his nursing home, Allan Karlsson  encounters rollicking adventures in both the present and in  flashbacks into his eventful life. Already being filmed, Jonas Jonasson's novel has won acclaim across Europe.

Trust the witty Howard Jacobson to transcend any melancholy or self-pity about the condition of his stymied novelist hero, whose talents these days are more directed at conducting  shocking relationships than at putting words to paper. But this rambunctious comedy asserts that while our basest desires are eternal, maybe our noblest ones are, too.

This story collection from Megan Mayhew Bergman charts the intersection of the human heart with the wild and domestic animals that share the planet with us. Human vicissitudes and victories find their perfect expression in a dog's fondness for eating socks or a parrot's ability to mimic the voice of a departed loved one.  A Discover Great New Writers selection.

In this enchanting novella, Colm Tóibín insists on the essential humanity of the Mother of Christ, portraying her love for her exceptional Son as neither smaller nor greater than any other maternal devotion, and just as full of peaks and valleys. These are movingly mortal struggles --  tinged with celestial grace.

Award-winning novelist Barbara Kingsolver wraps the hard kernel of climate change in the flesh of a late-blossoming romance. Stifled in her marriage, Dellarobia Turnbow encounters both a disturbing organic miracle in the mountains of Appalachia and the attentions of the scientist sent to investigate. Captivating, thought-provoking fiction from a master of the form.

Set in eighteenth century Sweden, this story of fate defied revolves around Emil Larsson, a bureaucrat in the Office of Customs and Excise. When a fortune-teller predicts that a path to love and success lays before Emil if only he finds eight essential people, he embarks on a journey to fulfill his destiny. It quickly becomes a desperate quest to save his country from rebellion and chaos. Karen Engelmann's novel brims with historical detail and timeless magic.

Justin Cronin's The Passage introduced a post-apocalyptic world laid low by a bioengineered vampire plague, recalling the best of Stephen King and Michael Crichton. The Twelve propels his saga forward but also peers into the heretofore unrevealed origins of the virus.

The heart of this surprisingly funny novel is a Midwestern Jewish family fracturing under the weight of neurosis and obsession. Its genius is author Jami Attenberg’s deep compassion for her subjects. Great for book clubs -- and everybody else.

In Elena Ferrante's hands, the story of two young girls growing up together in 1950s Naples becomes a sweeping family-centered epic that encompasses issues of loyalty, love, and a transforming Europe. This gorgeous novel should bring a host of new reader's to one of Italy's most acclaimed authors.

Familiar to readers of The New Yorker, the Cursing Mommy's expletive-laden exploits have included such botched endeavors as circumventing expensive caterers by composing one's own disastrously elaborate cocktails. Now humorist Ian Frazier brings this hair-trigger matriarch to the pages of a novel packed with laughs and four-letter words.

An aging actor surveys the wreckage of his life: the first and only woman he ever loved, the daughter he can't understand, the memories that prove increasingly untrustworthy. Man Booker Prize-winning novelist John Banville pens a moving character study that goes deep below the surface.

Jay Kristoff transports the steampunk genre from Victorian London's oft-trodden streets to feudal Japan. In a world brimming with mythical beasts, strange technologies, and dark conspiracies, a young woman sent on a seemingly impossible quest must find her way home and outwit the Shogun who never intended for her to return.

Shortlisted for the 2012 Man Booker Prize, Tan Twan Eng's haunting novel is set in Malaya in 1951 and follows a young woman recovering from the ravages of WWII. Accepted as the apprentice of a mysterious Japanese gardener in the tea plantations of the Cameron Highlands, she wrestles with her own secrets in a moving historical that recalls the work of David Mitchell.

In clear, clean prose, and reminiscent of Rosellen Brown's Before & After and Reservation Road by John Burnham Schwartz, Andrew Porter's astonishing and provocative debut novel follows a family falling apart in the face of colliding expectations, secrets, and betrayals.  A Discover Great New Writers Selection.

For years, Tom Harry has been content to look no further than the front door of The Medicine Lodge, the saloon he owns in northern Montana circa 1960. But when an old flame returns, bringing with her portents of the radical change that will soon sweep the country, Tom and his son Rusty's lives are upended. Ivan Doig's masterful new novel reveals why he's considered one of fiction's premiere storytellers.

Set in the Pacific Northwest during the early twentieth century, Amanda Coplin's compelling debut novel tells the story of Talmadge, a stoic man who tends his fruit trees while avoiding human company. When two young girls seek shelter on his land, the events that follow unfold with heartstopping, lyric power. A Discover Great New Writers selection.

Seven-year-old Raami's family members are minor Cambodian royalty who find themselves fleeing Phnom Penh as the brutal Khmer Rouge take the city. Her story -- based largely on novelist Vaddey Ratner's own experiences -- is a devastating epic of love, suffering, and survival during a historic tragedy.  (And don't miss this revealing interview about the author's childhood and how she came to write the novel).

The title of David R. Gillham's historical novel refers to Berlin 1943; with most men serving the Nazi war effort, a world of intrigue -- and surprising heroism -- remains in the German capital. And one soldier's wife is faced with a dramatic choice between familiar duty and the call to confront the evil around her.

Living in Madrid on a prestigious fellowship, young American poet Adam Gordon searches for authenticity, not only in his own work but also in his relationships with others. Author Ben Lerner reflects on life, creativity, and what it means to be genuine in a novel that eschews pretension in favor of an earnest -- often humorous -- consideration of art and those who make it.

Megan Abbott's Edgar Award-winning masterpiece, Queenpin, took noir fiction for a wild ride with an unforgettable dame in the lead. Her latest novel, Dare Me, brings a similarly dark sensibility to the world of high school cheerleading. When the captain of the squad clashes with a new coach, the result is seriously cutthroat competition.

On the eve of a family trip to Antarctica, brilliant recluse Bernadette Fox disappears. Her fifteen-year-old daughter, Bee, decides it's up to her to find her Mom, piecing together the mystery in this razor-sharp, madcap epistolary novel with a big, warm heart. A Discover Great New Writers selection.

Working as a lighthouse keeper, WWI veteran Tom Sherbourne finds a boat cradling a dead man and a crying baby. His wife, disappointed by two miscarriages and a stillbirth, convinces him to keep the child. It's a decision with a fateful impact in our newest B&N Recommends selection.

In Ernest Hebert's autobiographical novel, Jack Landry, a promising high school baseball player from small-town New Hampshire, strives to live by one simple motto: Never back down, never institgate. At least, it seems like a simple motto. But life proves far more complicated in this uniquely American coming-of-age story.

Lydia Netzer's marvelous debut novel introduces an unusual couple dealing with extraordinary challenges. When a car accident forces Sunny to confront the past that she hides under a blond wig, her genius astronaut husband, Maxon, is distracted by the fact that he's on his way to the moon. An original story of life's unpredictability and the cosmic power of love.

Grieving the death of her beloved uncle and alienated from her family, 14-year-old June finds solace in an unexpected friendship. Love and compassion course through Carol Rifka Brunt's tender coming-of-age story with an elegiac, emotional resonance that reminds us of Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping. A Discover Great New Writers selection.

Love, beauty, rock and roll, and really annoying workplaces:  that's the territory covered in this charming indie romance.  The 1990s are drawing to a close and neither art-school dropout Odile or sound-obsessed Jack know where their stalled lives are going. Joe Meno's sly, funny and hiply warmheated story of their awkward journey to love makes for a delightfully airy summer read.

Trapped beneath his entertainment system, waiting for his housekeeper to arrive and free him, outrageous reality TV mastermind Rick Salter reflects on his life and tries to piece together the events of the previous evening. Seth Kaufman's hilarious novel is a multifaceted meditation on pain and entertainment in a deranged society where the two are often interchangeable.

Vampire Matthew Clairmont and witch Diana Bishop travel back to Elizabethan London in the enchanting sequel to Deborah Harkness's blockbuster debut, A Discovery of Witches. Their quest for a dangerous manuscript will find them facing mysterious perils in which only one thing is certain -- the author's continued magic touch.

Suspense and a poignant love story combine in this tale of a World War II veteran who arrives in a small Virginia town, only to fall for the spouse of a powerful man. The author of the acclaimed novel A Reliable Wife brings a timeless magic and compelling urgency to this American tragedy.