Hellhound on His Trail
By Hampton Sides
480 pages; Doubleday
A meticulous account of the last days of Martin Luther King Jr. and the capture of the man who stalked and eventually killed him.
Get the reader's guide

Life Would Be Perfect if I Lived in That House
By Meghan Daum
256 pages; Knopf
A delightful dissection of the real estate obsession that's a hallmark of our age, recession or no.
Get the reader's guide

Every Last One
By Anna Quindlen
320 pages; Random House
The crowd-pleasing author is back with a readable novel about a mother forced to face some hard truths about her children.

Island Beneath the Sea
By Isabel Allende
464 pages; Harper
A historical novel about one Haitian woman's triumphant journey from slavery to freedom.

All Over the Map
By Laura Fraser
288 pages; Harmony
The author of the divorce memoir An Italian Affair on being dumped by the guy who helped her get over that divorce in the first place.
Get the reader's guide

5 more at-a-glance reviews