Housebroken: Admissions of an Untidy Life by Laurie Notaro, 270 pages

 #1 New York Times bestselling author Laurie Notaro isn’t exactly a domestic goddess—unless that means she fully embraces her genetic hoarding predisposition, sneaks peeks at her husband’s daily journal, or has made a list of the people she wants on her Apocalypse Survival team (her husband’s not on it).

Inspired by Victorian household manuals, Notaro chronicles her chronic misfortune in the domestic arts, including cooking, cleaning, and putting on Spanx while sweaty (which should technically qualify as an Olympic sport).

Housebroken is a rollicking new collection of essays showcasing her irreverent wit and inability to feel shame. From defying nature in the quest to making her own Twinkies, to begging her new neighbors not to become urban livestock keepers, to teaching her eight-year-old nephew about hobos, Notaro recounts her best efforts—and hilarious failures—in keeping a household inches away from being condemned. After all, home wasn’t built in a day.

All the Lonely People by Mike Gayle, 371 pages

 Hubert Bird is not alone in being alone.

He just needs to realise it.

In weekly phone calls to his daughter in Australia, widower Hubert Bird paints a picture of the perfect retirement, packed with fun, friendship and fulfilment.

But Hubert Bird is lying.

The truth is day after day drags by without him seeing a single soul.

Until, that is, he receives some good news - good news that in one way turns out to be the worst news ever, news that will force him out again, into a world he has long since turned his back on.

Now Hubert faces a seemingly impossible task: to make his real life resemble his fake life before the truth comes out.
Along the way Hubert stumbles across a second chance at love, renews a cherished friendship and finds himself roped into an audacious community scheme that seeks to end loneliness once and for all . . .

Life is certainly beginning to happen to Hubert Bird. But with the origin of his earlier isolation always lurking in the shadows will he ever get to live the life he's pretended to have for so long?

American Royals by Katherine McGee, 440 pages

 What if America had a royal family?

When America won the Revolutionary War, its people offered General George Washington a crown. Two and a half centuries later, the House of Washington still sits on the throne.

As Princess Beatrice gets closer to becoming America's first queen regnant, the duty she has embraced her entire life suddenly feels stifling.

Nobody cares about the spare except when she's breaking the rules, so Princess Samantha doesn't care much about anything, either . . . except the one boy who is distinctly off-limits to her.

And then there's Samantha's twin, Prince Jefferson. If he'd been born a generation earlier, he would have stood first in line for the throne, but the new laws of succession make him third. Most of America adores their devastatingly handsome prince . . . but two very different girls are vying to capture his heart.

Miss Bianca in the Orient by Margery Sharp, 144 pages

 Miss Bianca began to take more interest as the little green snake continued his story. "The Ranee's page," he added, "is in the elephant lines waiting to be trampled to smithereens at the next full moon on account of his sniveling into Her Highness's sherbert!"

And so intrepid Miss Bianca, her sense of justice outraged that such a dire punishment can be meted out for such a trifling error, begins to plan and scheme an urgent rescue mission, which must be the strangest and most exotic yet.

Only this time she will need every ounce of tact, every measure of courage and all the wits she could possibly muster.

MIss Bianca in the Salt Mines by Margery Sharp, 148 pages

 In her fourth adventure, accompanied by the adoring Bernard (and a couple of professorial mice, more trouble than anything else), Miss Bianca ventures into the sinister reaches of a salt mine, in a response to a call for help from Teddy-age-eight—no child ever calls Miss Bianca in vain!

Ida Early Comes Over the Mountain by Robert Burch, 145 pages

 Life in rural Georgia is tough for the Suttons. Their mother has passed away, and the country is in the midst of the Great Depression . But things take a turn for the better when Ida Early comes over the mountain. She offers to help Mr. Sutton with the children, and entertains them with her tall tales of lion taming, working as a cook on a pirate ship, and even a stunt pilot!

What the Butler Saw: Two Hundred and Fifty Years of the Servant Problem by E. S. Turner, 304 pages

 This is a lively foray into a world where a gentleman with £2,000 a year was betraying his class if he did not employ six females and five males; where a lady could go to the grave without ever having picked up a nightdress, carried her prayer book or made a pot of tea. It is the story of the housekeeper and the butler, the cook, the lady's maid, the valet and the coachman. Their duties are described in detail, and the story is told of the strife and even pitched battles that ensued between servants and the served. Here is social history from a fascinating angle, packed with droll information lightly handled, with many a moral for our own times.