The Far Side of the World: Captain Jack Aubrey sets sail for Cape Horn, determined to intercept an American frigate before it can wreak havoc on the British whaling trade. As always, he is accompanied by intelligence operative Stephen Maturin, and as always, Aubrey has no idea of what his companion is up to. Another impeccably written adventure, by the end of which you should be able to identify a mizzen topsail in your sleep.

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe: Folksy and fresh, endearing and affecting, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe is the now-classic novel of two women in the 1980s: of gray-headed Mrs. Threadgoode telling her life story to Evelyn, who is in the sad slump of middle age. The tale she tells is also of two women -- of the irrepressibly daredevilish tomboy Idgie and her friend Ruth -- who back in the thirties ran a little place in Whistle Stop, Alabama, a Southern kind of Cafe Wobegon offering good barbecue and good coffee and all kinds of love and laughter, even an occasional murder. And as the past unfolds, the present -- for Evelyn and for us -- will never be quite the same again. . .

Xenocide: Sequel to Ender's Game (1984) and Speaker for the Dead (1986), exploring the problems of alien contact and coexistence on planet Lusitania, where now three intelligent species dwell: human colonists; "buggers" (an arachnoid Hive Queen reasserts herself after the near extinction of her species in the human-bugger war); and the indigenous "piggies," who, after a horrid flaying-alive ceremony, metamorphose into sapient trees. But the planet is rife with descolada virus; this mediates the transformation of piggies into trees, but in humans mutates into a deadly, ineradicable plague. Rather than permit the descolada to spread, Earth sends a battle fleet to blast Lusitania. Once again, Ender Wiggin and his sister Valentine will play prominent roles in the search for a solution -- the upshot being, thanks to time travel, a "rescolada" rescue-virus that promises to turn a potential plague into a fabulous biological tool.

Hannibal: In one of the most eagerly anticipated literary events of the decade, Thomas Harris takes us once again into the mind of a killer, crafting a chilling portrait of insidiously evolving evil -- a tour de force of psychological suspense. Seven years have passed since Dr. Hannibal Lecter escaped from custody, seven years since FBI Special Agent Clarice Starling interviewed him in a maximum security hospital for the criminally insane. The doctor is still at large, pursuing his own ineffable interests, savoring the scents, the essences of an unguarded world. But Starling has never forgotten her encounters with Dr. Lecter, and the metallic rasp of his seldom-used voice still sounds in her dreams. Mason Verger remembers Dr. Lecter, too, and is obsessed with revenge. He was Dr. Lecter's sixth victim, and he has survived to rule his own butcher's empire. From his respirator, Verger monitors every twitch in his worldwide web. Soon he sees that to draw the doctor, he must have the most exquisite and innocent-appearing bait; he must have what Dr. Lecter likes best.

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