Picks and Pans Review: Great Reads New in Fiction

By JUDITH NEWMAN

UPDATED 11/01/2010 at 01:00 AM EDT • Originally published 11/01/2010 at 01:00 AM EDT

THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

by Douglas Kennedy

An epic old-fashioned love story set amid the fear-mongering of the McCarthyera '50s.

MAN IN THE WOODS

by Scott Spencer

A rural carpenter's single violent act threatens to destroy the life he's built with his writer girlfriend.

HOW TO READ THE AIR

by Dinaw Mengestu

Ethiopian immigrants struggle to assimilate in Mengestu's moving latest.