The Beauty by Jane Hirshfield (Knopf, $26). No one does the everyday and the transcendent like Hirshfield. She understands our inner and outer worlds, the kitchen and the bedroom and all that matters, from birth and death to artichokes and roses that are "the color of a library wall in Venice."
Without by Donald Hall (Mariner, $15). I never liked Hall's work until I picked up this 1998 collection, published three years after his wife, the great poet Jane Kenyon, died. (If you want someone who understands exactly what your bad, blue days are like — and makes you laugh, too — Kenyon is your woman.) Hall's Without is like a beautiful, moving novel of love, illness, mourning, and the first signs of life after grief.
Miracle Fair by Wislawa Szymborska (Norton, $17). Turn to this one for wit, irony, grace, and an understanding of human nature and human history that seems both God-like and as down-to-earth as coffee with your oldest, wisest friend. ("Some people fleeing some other people. In some country under the sun and some clouds.")
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Heat by Ed McBain (Thomas & Mercer, $14). It's hot, everyone is grumpy, and the rowdy, flawed crew of detectives in Isola (a fictionalized Manhattan) have to root around the art world while dealing with their own problems. McBain is always funny, always gripping, always real.
Ice by Ed McBain (Thomas & Mercer, $14). It's a terrible blizzard, people are stranded, lost, and freezing to death. Meanwhile, Steve Carella and his team investigate the mysterious, peculiar world of theater people. Ice is another first-rate thriller. In the words of critic John Carr: "To say that Ed McBain is a giant among mystery writers is like saying the Colossus of Rhodes was a pretty fair piece of municipal sculpture."
A Great Deliverance by Elizabeth George (Bantam, $16). George's 1984 novel was the first in another wonderful crime series, this one featuring two cops: the aristocratic Lynley and the grouchy, working-class Havers. English, not American; a pair, not a team; plus dark secrets, serious crime, intelligent dialogue, and surprises that make sense.
—Lucky Us, Amy Bloom's best-selling novel from last year, has just arrived in paperback. Bloom is also the author of Away and two acclaimed short-story collections.
