The Map and the Territory

The map — Michelin, blown up and manipulated by artist Jed Martin — is more beautiful, complex and profound than the territory itself, photographed from the sky. Martin says near the end of this Michel Houellebecq novel that he wants "to give an account of the world" with his paintings and photographs and, finally, videos. As in previous novels, Houellebecq delivers detours, shocks and gloom, but there is less explicit sex and random violence than before. It is a more autumnal, which is not to say mellow, Houellebecq.

Death and the Penguin

The hapless man at the mercy of forces beyond his control -- and who isn't, really? -- always makes a good subject for fiction. Here, Viktor is a writer of advance obituaries in Kiev whose subjects compliantly perish. He has a pet penguin, takes care of an orphan girl, and conducts an affair with the girl's nanny. He also is being trailed by gangsters or government thugs or possibly both. Andrey Kurkov's novel captures the melancholy and hustle of the immediate post-Soviet years, with a splash of humor.

African Psycho

In African Psycho, the French Congolese novelist Alain Mabanckou follows an aspiring criminal plotting his first murder. Gregoire, an orphan who bangs out dents in car fenders when he is not prowling his run-down neighborhood, He-Who-Drinks-Water-Is-An-Idiot, is inspired by the nation's recently deceased and most notorious criminal, whose grave he visits for inspiration. There is something of the solitary, independent intelligence of the unnamed protagonist of Hunger in Gregoire. He is a political and social critic, a bit of a sex fiend -- an angry young man who yet appeals, as he must for the book to be a success. Mabanckou has written a fine novel of pungent satire wrapped in a thriller.