fervillz

This plugin will empower a custom, adaptable and easy to use recent posts widget, you can show it by means of widget. Permits you to show a list of the latest posts with thumbnail, excerpt and post date.

Good plugin for all languages

Gives adaptable and highly organized recent posts. Show it through widget with thumbnails, post excerpt, post date.

DJ-Extensions.com

The simple plugin that allows you to display image slides with title, description and read more linked to posts from selected category. The slide title and description appear with slide-in animation effect. 
The user may select the category or display items of all categories. 
Number of slides is unlimited and you may specify how many slides you want to be visible in column. 
Image sizes available to select from the list are determined at Media Settings of WordPress. This way the plugin do not have to scale images by itself which is more site optimization friendly solution.
Configuration (see screenshot of backend):
<ol>
<li>Widget title.</li>
<li>Post type – enter post type name you want to display posts from.</li>
<li>Post type taxonomy – enter post type taxonomy name to restrict the data to display.</li>
<li>Taxonomy – select taxonomy items. You may select specified categories or display items from all categories. Empty taxonomy is not displayed.</li>
<li>Show archive links below items to give a possibility to read more posts from selected categories.</li>
<li>Force display sticky posts – applies to post type only, select if you want to include a sticky post to slides.</li>
<li>Number of items in a row.</li>
<li>Number of rows.</li>
<li>Make one row for a mobile devices (< 768px)</li>
<li>Number of all items – total number of slides.</li>
<li>Show or hide post titles.</li>
<li>Make post title linkable.</li>
<li>Choose header tag for titles.</li>
<li>Creation date – show/hide post creation date, the date format is taken from global settings, display date above or below the title.</li>
<li>Show or hide the author’s name.</li>
<li>Show or hide post taxonomy items (a category name)</li>
<li>Readmore – show/hide read more link.</li>
<li>Order direction (ascending, descending).</li>
<li>Ordering type (date, title, most commented, most read).</li>
<li>Navigation (bullets, none).</li>
<li>Description limit – enter number of chars for each slide description.</li>
<li>Image alignment (left, right, top, bottom).</li>
<li>Show/hide thumbnail.</li>
<li>Thumbnail linkable – link the image to the full post</li>
<li>Interval in milliseconds for a sliding.</li>
<li>Enable or disable pause on hover.</li>
<li>Image size from WordPress settings (Settings > Media). You can choose: thumbnail, medium, large</li>
<li>Grid spacing – space between items.</li>
</ol>

PE Recent Posts

The simple plugin that allows you to display image slides with title, description and read more linked to posts from selected category.

Recent Post Widget Thumbnail vs PE Recent Posts