This glitteringly indulgent novel incorporates so many different genres that it's hard to narrow down to just one--or even three. Vaguely Victorian, stolidly fantastical, and layered with heavy helpings of mystery and intrigue, THE GLASS BOOKS OF THE DREAM EATERS really gets going when Miss Temple, Dr. Abelard Svenson, and Cardinal Chang, all visitors to a wealthy manor, accidentally stumble (at different times) onto an odd cult that ritualizes the process of removing peoples' memories and injecting them into glass books, which can then be used as weapons. The storyline is a sprawling one, and Dahlquist weaves innumerable varicolored subplots together to create an ambitious pastiche of imaginative fiction.

In what has become a classic of urban sociology, Mike Davis's CITY OF QUARTZ traces the history of Los Angeles from its origins into the present, and finds a place perpetually plagued with social conflict as the result of ecological, racial, and class-based power struggles. Though controversial for its apocalyptic perspective, CITY OF QUARTZ is a riveting, compelling, and thought-provoking read.

This is a collection of linked short stories, all set in de Lint's fictional city, Newford. Includes several World Fantasy Award nominees, including "Our Lady of the Harbour" and "The Moon is Drowning While I Sleep".

The first book in author Delany's complex study of the mythology of an imaginary country on the brink of "civilization." Contains five "tales" as well as an introduction and an appendix written by Delany under a pair of pseudonyms.

In THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKING, Joan Didion writes an account of her life since the 2003 death of her husband, John Gregory Dunne. Didion's grief was profound and debilitating; she and Dunne had been married for nearly 40 years, during which they were hardly ever apart. But in the course of her mourning period, she also gained crucial insights into herself, her marriage, death, and loss. Winner of the 2005 National Book Award for Nonfiction and named one of the 10 Best Books of 2005 by the New York Times.

Louis Sacchetti is taken from the prison he's been sentenced to and put in Camp Archimedes. He is infected with Palladine, a mind-expanding drug whose side effect is syphilis. Sacchetti knows he is doomed to die of syphilis, as are the other camp inmates, and must come to terms with this. It is worth noting that this book, originally published in 1968, appeared in print BEFORE reports of government-run psychological experimentation during the 1950s and 1960s.