1. John le Carré, The Pigeon Tunnel　　约翰·勒·卡雷《鸽子通道》

　　The master of espionage fiction offers a memoir of sorts, a series of meticulously crafted, witty and enthralling "stories from my life". He describes the childhood deceptions and losses that launched him, his schooling in Switzerland, where he made his first "infant steps for British Intelligence, delivering I knew not what to I knew not whom."

　　间谍小说大师推出自传体作品，细腻打造“我的生活中”引人入胜的趣事。他描述了童年遭遇的欺骗和随之而来的失落感，讲述了在瑞士的学生时光，正是在那里，他“迈出了成为英国情报人员的第一小步，把我不了解的信息传递给我不认识的人”。

　　2. Ann Patchett, Commonwealth　　安·帕奇特《联结》

　　In her brilliant new novel, Patchett, winner of the 2001 Orange Prize for Bel Canto, traces the consequences of one impulsive act on an American family over 50 years. She begins with a christening party for Fix and Beverly Keating's second daughter, Franny. Bert Cousins, a Los Angeles deputy district attorney, shows up uninvited with a bottle of gin. By the end of the party, he has kissed Beverly. Patchett creates memorable, complex characters in this exploration of the reverberations of betrayal.

　　在这本绝妙的新小说中，因《美声唱法》获得2001年柑橘文学奖的作者帕奇特追溯了一个美国家庭长达50年的历史变迁，而这一切仅仅源于一次冲动行为。故事开头是费克斯和贝弗利·基廷的二女儿弗兰妮的受礼仪式，一位洛杉矶小律师伯特·考辛斯带着一瓶杜松子酒不请自来。宴会结束时，他已经亲吻了女主人贝弗利。帕奇特探究了背叛带来的巨大影响，并在其中塑造了让人印象深刻的复杂人物。

　　3. Franz Kafka, Konundrum　　弗兰兹·卡夫卡作品集

　　"Kafkaesque" is "synonymous with the nightmarish, the ominous, and the bureaucratically bizarre," notes Peter Wortsman in the afterword to his lucid and rhythmic translation of a selection of the Prague icon's short stories, parables, letters and diaries.

　　“卡夫卡式”就是“噩梦般的、不祥的、充满官僚主义的怪异”，彼得·沃茨曼在后记中如此写道。这本书收集了捷克代表作家卡夫卡的短篇故事、寓言、信件和日记，而沃茨曼的译文清晰明了，韵律感十足。

　　4. Peter Ho Davies, The Fortunes　　彼得·何·戴维斯《命运》

　　Davies distills 150 years of Chinese-American history in his timely and eloquent new novel. In Gold, the first of its four sections, Ah Ling, 14, the son of a Hong Kong prostitute, seeks his fortune in California. Silver portrays the 30-year career of the LA-born actress Anna May Wong, who co-stars with Douglas Fairbanks at 19.

　　戴维斯在这本如约而至的新小说中用丰富生动的语言提炼了美籍华人150年的历史。在四章节中的第一章“黄金篇”里，14岁的阿凌(音译)，一个香港妓女的儿子，在加利福尼亚开始了追寻财富的生活。“白银篇”讲述了洛杉矶出生的女演员黄柳霜30年的职业生涯，她从19岁就开始和道格拉斯·费尔班克斯同台演出了。

　　5. James Gleick, Time Travel

　　詹姆斯·格莱克《时光旅行》

　　Science writer Gleick takes a panoramic approach to the fourth dimension, a subject that fascinated the fin de siècle scientific world. He begins with HG Wells drafting his landmark 1895 book The Time Machine. He includes Edith Nesbit, a Wells contemporary, who invented a time-travel subgenre in her 1906 novel The Story of the Amulet.

　　科学作家格莱克对第四维空间进行了全景式的描绘。在19世纪末的科学世界，四维空间是一个热门话题。故事始于1895年HG·威尔斯起草里程碑式巨著《时间机器》，结束于1906年威尔士当代作家伊迪斯·内斯比特在小说《护身符的故事》中创造出时光旅行的亚主题。