A Little of What You Fancy by H. E. Bates, 153 pages

 'Teetotal!' Ma said. 'It's a libel. He'll never live it down. He'll never be able to hold his head up again. Whatever will people think? What's he going to say when anybody asks him to have one?' ' 'No,' 'said Dr Conner. 'You'll have to strap him down,' Ma said. 'You'll have to put the handcuffs on.' And so after a mild heart-attack - caused by rather too much of what you fancy - Pop Larkin finds himself off the booze, off the good food and off the good life generally, much to his own and everyone's else's horror and upset. And while Ma tries to find ways around 'doctor's orders', young Primrose is finding her own way round a rather flustered - not to say flushed - Mr Candy...

Teaching...Is a Learning Experience! by Lynn Johnston, 144 pages

 Lynn Johnston's award-winning For Better or For Worse comic strip is the world's most popular strip in which characters evolve through age and experience, rather than remaining frozen in time. Fans appreciate that the daily doings of the Patterson family often closely resemble their own.

* Featuring more than 43 weeks of strips, with Sundays in color, this collection features Elizabeth's developing teaching skills working in a northern First Nation's community, Mike and Deanna's move to Mrs. Saltzman's upstairs apartment, April's confrontation of teenage issues like acne and self-image, while John and Elly face middle-age ailments and the possibility of retirement.

She's Turning Into One of Them! by Lynn Johnston, 136 pages

 In 1991, I wanted another baby," writes creator Lynn Johnston. "Since it wasn't possible to do in reality, I made one up! Baby April appeared April 1st of that year and has added a great deal of creative fun to the strip. . . ."

The Pattersons have never exactly been all "sweetness and light." As any For Better or For Worse fan can attest, this entertaining family endures just as many of life's downs as ups, but they always seem to keep moving forward. Now, however, parents Elly and John experience life in all directions as their youngest daughter, April, becomes a teenager!

In true For Better or For Worse style, the best-selling strip examines all the good and bad of "teenagedom," while keeping it in context of the rest of the family's other joys and challenges. Readers will smile knowingly as John and Elly try to decipher teen-speak, deal with their own protective parental tendencies, and struggle to give their maturing daughter the independence she wants and needs. Then just when the wide, wide world of 13-year-olds is at its most intense, everything from fired coworkers to another new grandbaby vie for everyone's attention.

This collection of daily and Sunday strips demonstrates once again that Johnston's ability to intertwine the lives of all her characters with the reader's own is remarkable. She's Turning into One of Them! will have them laughing, crying, and shaking their heads in the best For Better or For Worse fashion. Life? Bring it on!

Excuse Me While I Slip Into Someone More Comfortable by Eric Poole, 275 pages

 In 1977, Eric Poole is a talented high school trumpet player with one working ear, the height-to-weight ratio of a hat rack, a series of annoyingly handsome bullies, and a mother irrationally devoted to Lemon Pledge. But who he wants to be is a star…ANY star. With equal parts imagination, flair, and delusion, Eric proceeds to emulate a series of his favorite celebrities, like Barry Manilow, Halston, Tommy Tune, and Shirley MacLaine, in an effort to become the man he’s meant to be—that is, anyone but himself.

As he moves through his late teens and early twenties in suburban St. Louis, he casts about for an appropriate outlet for his talents. Will he be a trumpet soloist? A triple-threat actor/singer/dancer? A fashion designer in gritty New York City?

Striving to become the son who can finally make his parents proud, Eric begins to suspect that discovering his personal and creative identities can only be accomplished by admitting who he really is. Picking up at the end of his first acclaimed memoir, Where’s My Wand?, Poole’s journey from self-delusion to acceptance is simultaneously hysterical, heartfelt, and inspiring.

Rare Books and Royal Collectors: Memoirs of an Antiquarian Bookseller by Maurice L. Ettinghausen, 220 pages

 The adventures, twists, and turns of finding old books, manuscripts, maps, and related odd items... and moving them to the libraries, museums, and collections where they would be preserved and protected: That was Ettinghausen's international life and work for about 60 years, beginning just after 1900. Being multilingual and trained in classics and history, he helped to re/discover much that had been lost or hidden for generations, or even centuries. His sources and clients included royalty, the wealthy, the savants, and a few undefinables. I was especially interested in his involvement with the Huntingdon Library and the Codex Sinaiticus.

Never Wink at a Worried Woman by Lynn Johnston, 128 pages

 In Never Wink at a Worried Woman, life is progressing for each character. Elly and John tenuously think of retirement while still being preoccupied parents of a preteen. Michael and Deanna grow into their roles as new parents while Michael's career gets a new boost. Elizabeth takes more steps to adulthood, by beginning her student teaching and facing the fact that Anthony is marrying another. April is racing to turn 13, busy with her band and also helping out at Lilliput's, where she makes a painful discovery about a coworker. Add in Grampa Jim's quest to maintain his aging dignity and baby Meredith's burgeoning curiosity, and you get a full dose of life.

Black Swan, White Raven edited by Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling, 366 pages

 In their fourth collection of original adult fairy tales written by some of the premier names in literature today, World Fantasy Award-winning editors Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling transport readers deep into an enchanted forest with a stunning array of magical stories - bringing us the princes and ogres, charms and bewitchings, castles, cottages and secret gardens of fervent imagination.