Short List: New & Noteworthy

Train to Trieste, Domnica Radulescu's debut novel about a teenage girl's escape from Ceausescu-era Romania, leaving behind an unforgettable first love.

Babylon Rolling, Amanda Boyden's unvarnished novel of pre-Katrina New Orleans, warts and eccentric beauty and all.

This Must Be the Place, an offbeat love story between an American woman fleeing post-9/11 New York and a has-been German actor, set in Berlin, by Berlin-based Anna Winger.

Dry Storeroom No. 1: The Secret Life of a Natural History Museum, a surprisingly fascinating behind-the-scenes look at London's 127-year-old Natural History Museum, by the museum's former senior paleontologist, Richard Fortey.