The Atomic City Girls by Janet Beard, 353 pages

What'ss a real family like? These days it'ss bound to resemble the lovable clan in Stone Soup. Stone Soup is a funny, irreverent, sympathetic comic strip read by more than 8 million people every day. This first collection, with forward by Lynn Johnston, creator of For Better or For Worse, will help you find the humor in modern family.

Stone Soup by Jan Eliot, 128 pages

What's a real family like? These days it'

s bound to resemble the lovable clan in Stone Soup. Stone Soup is a funny, irreverent, sympathetic comic strip read by more than 8 million people every day. This first collection, with forward by Lynn Johnston, creator of For Better or For Worse, will help you find the humor in modern family.

Giant Days by Allison, Sarin, Fleming & Cogar, 112 pages

Esther, Susan, and Daisy have moved into their beautiful new house off campus, but the new living situation creates new challenges for the girls.
Second year begins and Daisy, Susan, and Esther have taken their friendship commitment to the next level by moving into their “beautiful home” off-campus. But the keys didn’t come without new responsibilities. Unwanted suitor visits, a robbery, and Susan living only a few blocks apart from her ex-boyfriend, McGraw, has made the dorms feel like a haven. The girls are in for a dose of reality when they learn that there’s more to being an adult than paying your own rent.
Eisner Award nominee John Allison (Bad Machinery, Scary Go Round) and illustrators Max Sarin and Liz Fleming welcome you back to Sophomore year in Giant Days Volume 6, collecting issues #21-24 of the critically acclaimed series.

Giant Days, Volume 5 by Allison, Sarin, Fleming & Cogar, 112 pages

Going off to university is always a time of change and growth, but for Esther, Susan, and Daisy, things are about to get a little weird.

Their freshman year is finally coming to a close and Daisy, Susan, and Esther say goodbye to Catterick Hall forever. Literally forever. It’s being bulldozed and re-purposed as a luxury dorm next semester. But as one door closes, another opens and between end of semester hookups, music festivals, and moving into their first home together, the life experiences are just getting started.

Written by Eisner Award nominee John Allison (Bad Machinery, Scary Go Round) and illustrated by Max Sarin, Giant Days Volume 5 finishes off freshman year in style, collecting issues #17-20 of the Eisner and Harvey Award-nominated series.

Raspberry Danish Murder by Joanne Fluke, 529 pages

Thanksgiving has a way of thawing the frostiest hearts in Lake Eden. But that won’t be happening for newlywed Hannah Swensen Barton—not after her husband suddenly disappears . . .
 
Hannah has felt as bitter as November in Minnesota since Ross vanished without a trace and left their marriage in limbo. Still, she throws herself into a baking frenzy for the sake of pumpkin pie and Thanksgiving-themed treats while endless holiday orders pour into The Cookie Jar. Hannah even introduces a raspberry Danish pastry to the menu, and P.K., her husband’s assistant at KCOW-TV, will be one of the first to sample it. But instead of taking a bite, P.K., who is driving Ross’s car and using his desk at work, is murdered. Was someone plotting against P.K. all along or did Ross dodge a deadly dose of sweet revenge? Hannah will have to quickly sift through a cornucopia of clues and suspects to stop a killer from bringing another murder to the table . . .

The Magdalen Girls by V.S. Alexander, 294 pages

Dublin, 1962. Within the gated grounds of the convent of The Sisters of the Holy Redemption lies one of the city’s Magdalen Laundries. Once places of refuge, the laundries have evolved into grim workhouses. Some inmates are “fallen” women—unwed mothers, prostitutes, or petty criminals. Most are ordinary girls whose only sin lies in being too pretty, too independent, or tempting the wrong man. Among them is sixteen-year-old Teagan Tiernan, sent by her family when her beauty provokes a lustful revelation from a young priest.

Teagan soon befriends Nora Craven, a new arrival who thought nothing could be worse than living in a squalid tenement flat. Stripped of their freedom and dignity, the girls are given new names and denied contact with the outside world. The Mother Superior, Sister Anne, who has secrets of her own, inflicts cruel, dehumanizing punishments—but always in the name of love. Finally, Nora and Teagan find an ally in the reclusive Lea, who helps them endure—and plot an escape. But as they will discover, the outside world has dangers too, especially for young women with soiled reputations.

Told with candor, compassion, and vivid historical detail, The Magdalen Girls is a masterfully written novel of life within the era’s notorious institutions—and an inspiring story of friendship, hope, and unyielding courage.

Rose is Rose by Pat Brady, 128 pages

Pat Brady's comic strips send readers to another plane. That's quite an accomplishment for a simple story line centered on a two-parent, single-child family. But Brady's readers soar, through both the laughs and a visual visceral connection to the feelings the characters themselves experience. "Rose is Rose Right on the Lips: A Rose is Rose Collection" continues the tales of the Gumbo family. Rose is the wife and mother, a child at heart who just happens to have a biker chick alter ego. Husband Jimbo, a "decent Neanderthal," looks like an average blue-collar dad, but he's actually an incurable romantic. And Pasquale, their son, is an imagination-fired kid who loves Peekaboo, the family cat, and is often saved from trouble by his guardian angel. Brady swirls this familial mix into seemingly endless recipes of fun, adventure, and fantasy, but he adds a special magic with his original sense of perspective and space that makes readers feel as though they, too, are part of the action. This collection of daily and Sunday strips is a great introduction to those new to "Rose is Rose" and a surefire winner with longtime Gumbo-family fans. The creator adds value for all readers by including two flip books in the pages' lower corners, delightfully animating the characters right in front of their eyes!

A Midwife's Tale by Laurel Ulrich, 444 pages

Drawing on the diaries of a midwife and healer in eighteenth-century Maine, this intimate history illuminates the medical practices, household economies, religious rivalries, and sexual mores of the New England frontier.

This won the 1991 Pulitzer for History.

Lio: There's a Monster in My Socks by Mark Tatulli, 224 pages

For the first time, the creepy, crawly, awesome world of Lio in a kid-targeted book.

The world of Lio is filled with the extraordinary—monsters under the bed, wild reptile pets, robot inventions, weird science—but it’s all commonplace for this most uncommon young man. Mark Tatulli renders this pantomime strip in pen-and-ink style, giving the artwork a dark, spidery feel to match the strip’s dark humor. Lio explores the twisted realm of a kid’s imagination—at once bizarre, creepy, and fun. Now, in this collection edited specially for kids, Lio is available to his most dedicated fans.

Cross Creek by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, 368 pages

Cross Creek is the warm and delightful memoir about the life of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings--author of The Yearling--in the Florida backcountry.

Originally published in 1942, Cross Creek has become a classic in modern American literature. For the millions of readers raised on The Yearling, here is the story of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings's experiences in the remote Florida hamlet of Cross Creek, where she lived for thirteen years. From the daily labors of managing a seventy-two-acre orange grove to bouts with runaway pigs and a succession of unruly farmhands, Rawlings describes her life at the Creek with humor and spirit. Her tireless determination to overcome the challenges of her adopted home in the Florida backcountry, her deep-rooted love of the earth, and her genius for character and description result in a most delightful and heartwarming memoir.

This would have been a delightful read except for the author's rampant racist attitude toward African-Americans. The chapters that dealt only with plants or animals were fine, but the whole book was pretty much ruined for me. I know it was published in the 1940s, but there is no excuse for her language and/or attitude.

Lio: Making Friends by Mark Tatulli, 224 pages

Creepy, crawly, slimy, and awesome! Welcome to the darkly detailed world of spiky-haired Lio.

A curious young scientist and comic book fan, Lio is the defender of the defenseless and the inventor of a legion of zombie bunnies. Lio is joined in his day-to-day exploits by his exasperated and sleep-deprived father, a pet snake named Frank, a squid named Ishmael, and various imaginary robots and creepy, crawly monsters. Within this humorously macabre framework of sarcasm, parody, and high jinks, sidesplitting laughter abounds—all without so much as a word.

Uncommon Type: Some Stories by Tom Hanks, 403 pages

A collection of seventeen wonderful short stories showing that two-time Oscar winner Tom Hanks is as talented a writer as he is an actor. 

A gentle Eastern European immigrant arrives in New York City after his family and his life have been torn apart by his country's civil war. A man who loves to bowl rolls a perfect game--and then another and then another and then many more in a row until he winds up ESPN's newest celebrity, and he must decide if the combination of perfection and celebrity has ruined the thing he loves. An eccentric billionaire and his faithful executive assistant venture into America looking for acquisitions and discover a down and out motel, romance, and a bit of real life. These are just some of the tales Tom Hanks tells in this first collection of his short stories. They are surprising, intelligent, heartwarming, and, for the millions and millions of Tom Hanks fans, an absolute must-have!

Why Kill the Innocent by C.S. Harris, 335 pages

In the newest mystery from the national bestselling author of Where the Dead Lie, a brutal murder draws Sebastian St. Cyr into the web of the royal court, where intrigue abounds and betrayal awaits.

London, 1814. As a cruel winter holds the city in its icy grip, the bloody body of a beautiful young musician is found half-buried in a snowdrift. Jane Ambrose's ties to Princess Charlotte, the only child of the Prince Regent and heir presumptive to the throne, panic the palace, which moves quickly to shut down any investigation into the death of the talented pianist. But Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, and his wife Hero refuse to allow Jane's murderer to escape justice. 

Untangling the secrets of Jane's world leads Sebastian into a maze of dangerous treachery where each player has his or her own unsavory agenda and no one can be trusted. As the Thames freezes over and the people of London pour onto the ice for a Frost Fair, Sebastian and Hero find their investigation circling back to the palace and building to a chilling crescendo of deceit and death . . .

The Golden Age of Piracy: The Truth Behind Pirate Myths by Benerson Little, 356 pages

For thousands of years, pirates have terrorized the ocean voyager and the coastal inhabitant, plundered ship and shore, and wrought havoc on the lives and livelihoods of rich and poor alike. Around these desperate men has grown a body of myths and legends—fascinating tales that today strongly influence our notions of pirates and piracy. Most of these myths derive from the pirates of the “Golden Age,” from roughly 1655 to 1725. This was the age of the Spanish Main, of Henry Morgan and Blackbeard, of Bartholomew Sharp and Bartholomew Roberts.

The history of pirate myth is rich in action, at sea and ashore. However, the truth is far more interesting. In The Golden Age of Piracy, expert pirate historian Benerson Little debunks more than a dozen pirate myths that derive from this era—from the flying of the Jolly Roger to the burying of treasure, from walking the plank to the staging of epic sea battles—and shows that the truth is far more fascinating and disturbing than the romanticized legends.

Among Little’s revelations are that pirates of the Golden Age never made their captives walk the plank and that they, instead, were subject to horrendous torture, such as being burned or hung by their arms. Likewise, epic sea battles involving pirates were fairly rare because most prey surrendered immediately.

The stories are real and are drawn heavily from primary sources. Complementing them are colorful images of flags, ships, and buccaneers based on eyewitness accounts.

How Carrots Won The Trojan War by Rebecca Rupp, 376 pages

How Carrots Won the Trojan War is a delightful collection of little-known stories about the origins, legends, and historical significance of 23 of the world's most popular vegetables. Curious cooks, gardeners, and casual readers alike will be fascinated by these far-fetched tales of their favorite foods' pasts. Readers will discover why Roman gladiators were massaged with onion juice before battle, how celery contributed to Casanova's conquests, how peas almost poisoned General Washington, and why some seventeenth-century turnips were considered degenerate. 

How Carrots Won the Trojan War is the perfect book for vegetable gardeners, foodies, and anyone else interested in the secret stories behind a salad.

The Book Jumper by Mechthild Glaser, 373 pages

Amy Lennox doesn't know quite what to expect when she and her mother pick up and leave Germany for Scotland, heading to her mother's childhood home of Lennox House on the island of Stormsay. Amy's grandmother, Lady Mairead, insists that Amy must read while she resides at Lennox House-but not in the usual way. It turns out that Amy is a book jumper, able to leap into a story and interact with the world inside. As thrilling as Amy's new power is, it also brings danger: someone is stealing from the books she visits, and that person may be after her life. Teaming up with fellow book jumper, Will, Amy vows to get to the bottom of the thefts-at whatever cost.

A House Full of Females: Plural Marriage and Women's Rights in Early Mormonism, 1835-1870 by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, 512 pages

A stunning and sure-to-be controversial book that pieces together, through more than two dozen nineteenth-century diaries, letters, albums, minute-books, and quilts left by first-generation Latter-day Saints, or Mormons, the never-before-told story of the earliest days of the women of Mormon "plural marriage," whose right to vote in the state of Utah was given to them by a Mormon-dominated legislature as an outgrowth of polygamy in 1870, fifty years ahead of the vote nationally ratified by Congress, and who became political actors in spite of, or because of, their marital arrangements. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, writing of this small group of Mormon women who've previously been seen as mere names and dates, has brilliantly reconstructed these textured, complex lives to give us a fulsome portrait of who these women were and of their "sex radicalism"--the idea that a woman should choose when and with whom to bear children.

The Merry Spinster Tales of Everyday Horror by Mallory Ortberg, 190 pages

From Mallory Ortberg comes a collection of darkly mischievous stories based on classic fairy tales. Adapted from her beloved "Children's Stories Made Horrific" series, "The Merry Spinster" takes up the trademark wit that endeared Ortberg to readers of both The Toast and her best-selling debut Texts From Jane Eyre. The feature become among the most popular on the site, with each entry bringing in tens of thousands of views, as the stories proved a perfect vehicle for Ortberg’s eye for deconstruction and destabilization. Sinister and inviting, familiar and alien all at the same time, The Merry Spinster updates traditional children's stories and fairy tales with elements of psychological horror, emotional clarity, and a keen sense of feminist mischief.

Readers of The Toast will instantly recognize Ortberg's boisterous good humor and uber-nerd swagger: those new to Ortberg's oeuvre will delight in her unique spin on fiction, where something a bit mischievous and unsettling is always at work just beneath the surface.

Unfalteringly faithful to its beloved source material, The Merry Spinster also illuminates the unsuspected, and frequently, alarming emotional complexities at play in the stories we tell ourselves, and each other, as we tuck ourselves in for the night.

Bed time will never be the same.