Books: All Quiet On The Orient Express

After spending the last days of his vacation at a campsite in northern England, the narrator plans to travel to India. First, though, he agrees to paint a fence for the campground owner in exchange for free rent. The traveler, who never merits a name, really must get going, but the tasks keep piling up. Before long, he's rebuilding a jetty, doing homework for the owner's daughter, playing on the local pub's dart team and running the town's milk route. In this creepy, deadpan novel by a nominee for Britain's Booker Prize, nothing much happens--except that one man slowly, painlessly, surrenders his life.

--By Nadya Labi