NOAH'S COMPASS

by Anne Tyler

(Knopf Doubleday, 288 pp., $25.95)

In Anne Tyler's 18th novel, the unexceptional Liam Pennywell, a widowed schoolteacher, loses his job one day and wakes up in a hospital the next, with no recollection of the experience. Post-injury, he struggles with memory loss and learns to love. (Scheduled to be published in January.)

THE UNNAMED

by Joshua Ferris

(Little, Brown, 313 pp., $24.99)

A mysterious sporadic disorder causes successful lawyer Tim Farnsworth to start walking - and he doesn't stop until the disorder vanishes, as randomly as it appeared. Meanwhile, his beloved wife, Jane, combats alcoholism and illness while trying to keep Tim in one piece. (January)

POINT OMEGA

by Don DeLillo

(Simon & Schuster, 128 pp., $24)

Filmmaker Jim Finley tracks down Richard Elster, a former war adviser living alone in the desert, to make a single-take, single-character documentary on Elster's experience. Elster's daughter Jessie appears weeks later, and the three bond until something disastrous happens. (February)

THE LOST BOOKS OF THE ODYSSEY

by Zachary Mason

(Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 256 pp., $24)

A humorous reimagining of Homer's epic poem, Mason's debut novel is a satirical look at Odysseus' life after he returns from the war, offering alternate endings and original takes on the classic story. For lovers of humor and Hellenism. (February)

RUBY'S SPOON

by Anna Lawrence Pietroni

(Random House, 336 pp., $26)

When fascinating, white-haired Isa Fly suddenly appears in the English town of Cradle Cross, 13-year-old Ruby is drawn to her. But Cradle Cross is facing financial peril, and the reasons for Isa's abrupt arrival are called into question when town valuables begin to disappear. (February)

THE ASK

by Sam Lipsyte

(Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 304 pp., $25)

Lipsyte's latest novel is a dark riff on contemporary America. Newly unemployed Milo Burke is solicited by a third-rate university to court funding from a potential donor, who turns out to be a former classmate with a shady assignment for Milo. (March)

THE SURRENDERED

by Chang-rae Lee

(Penguin Group, 480 pp., $26.95)

After the Korean War, war orphan June Han and GI Hector Brennan met in a missionary orphanage and vied for the attention of beautiful Sylvie Tanner. Thirty years after the war, the three reunite and must confront their histories, dark secrets, and the memory of what ties them together. (March)

THE DOUBLE COMFORT SAFARI CLUB

by Alexander McCall Smith

(Knopf Doubleday, 256 pp., $23.95)

The latest in McCall Smith's "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" series, in which Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi journey to a Botswana safari lodge where several guests have mysteriously perished. (April)

THE CHANGELING

by Kenzaburo Oe and Deborah Boehm

(Grove/Atlantic, 480 pp., $26)

Tokyo film director Goro Hanawa commits suicide and leaves a series of tapes to his brother-in-law Kogito, laying out plans for a possible film. Kogito becomes obsessed with the tapes and discovers a haunting connection in Goro's past. (March)

THE GOLDEN MILE

by Martin Cruz Smith

(Simon & Schuster, 352 pp., $25.99)

The seventh book in the Arkady Renko series. When the Moscow police don't believe Maya's story that her baby was stolen, she enlists a young man to help her scour a dubious neighborhood. Meanwhile, Arkady gets involved in an intriguing case in the same area. (March)

NONFICTION

DARING YOUNG MEN

by Richard Reeves

(Simon & Schuster, 336 pp., $28)

The story of the American pilots behind the year-long Berlin Airlift. They delivered food, medicine, and fuel to the 2 million citizens of Soviet-blockaded West Berlin in 1948, buying the Allies enough time to create the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. (January)

OUR TIMES: THE AGE OF ELIZABETH II

by A.N. Wilson

(Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 496 pp., $30)