Veronica By Mary Gaitskill． Pantheon Books, $23． This attractively dark novel from the author of Bad Behavior and Two Girls, Fat and Thin is narrated by a former Paris model who is now sick and poor, her reflections On beauty and cruelty have clarity and an uncanny bite． On Beauty By Zadie Smith． Penguin Press, $25.95 In her new book, a cultural-politics novel set in a place like Harvard, the author of White Teeth brings everything to the table：a crisp intellect, a lovely wit and enormous sympathy for the men, women and children who read her story． Saturday By lan McEwan． Nan A．Talese／Doubleday．$26． As exciting and as carefully constructed as anything McEwan has written, this astringent(尖锐的)novel traces a day in the life of an English neurosurgeon who comes face to face with senseless violence． De Kooning：An American Master By Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan． Alfred A．Knopf, $35． A brilliant biography, impressively researched and absorbingly written, of the talented immigrant who stood at the vortex(中心)of mid-20th-century American art． A History of Europe Since 1945 By Tony Judt． Penguin Press, $39.95． Judt’s massive, learned, truthfully detailed account of Europe’s recovery from the wreckage of World War II presents a whole continent in panorama(全景)even as it sets off detonations(爆炸)of insight on almost every page． | 
