The Ministry of Utmost Happiness is Arundhati Roy’s first novel in 20 (God of Small Things).  It is worth the wait: this is a “humane, engaged tale” about an outcast and a privileged journalist who both claim custody over an abandoned child.   Prepare to be wowed by Roy’s “abiding compassion, storytelling magic, and piquant wit” (Booklist).  Quiet until the Thaw is Alexandra Fuller’s (Let’s Not Go to the Dogs) first novel, a story about Lakota Sioux struggling to make sense of their lives on the rez.   Fuller, though an outsider, is a keen sense of engagement with the land and is a “sympathetic storyteller.  Her prose shimmers with life in this excellent novel.”  (Publishers Weekly).   The Accomplished Guest by Anne Beattie offers 13 “wry, chatty stories” that you can dip into and enjoy.  Beattie “punctures her characters’ pretensions with effortless dialogue, precise irony and consummate cool” (NYT).  T