The year is 1969, and when Hope Fairman's husband leaves her for another woman, she is left with the house, the kids, and the Cadillac she has always resisted driving. As she struggles to rebuild her life, she finds herself dealing with the implications of many of the phenomena of the period, including the commune to which she eventually retreats.

Cult favorite Chuck Palahniuk outgrosses even himself in this series of grotesque tales about a group of writers at a three-month writing retreat at an old theater. In a scheme to become rich and famous when they later write about their ordeal, they embark on an experience of extreme communal brutality--eventually even consuming parts of each other's bodies. Amid all the horror, the stories they write at the retreat are scattered through the book: set in the actual world, they show another side of Palahniuk, one with considerably less gore and a less extreme focus on the macabre.

Cult favorite Chuck Palahniuk outgrosses even himself in this series of grotesque tales about a group of writers at a three-month writing retreat at an old theater. In a scheme to become rich and famous when they later write about their ordeal, they embark on an experience of extreme communal brutality--eventually even consuming parts of each other's bodies. Amid all the horror, the stories they write at the retreat are scattered through the book: set in the actual world, they show another side of Palahniuk, one with considerably less gore and a less extreme focus on the macabre.

When V.I.'s Aunt Elena turns up on her door step breathing breath of fire since her single room occupancy hotel burned down, V.I. knows trouble is close behind.

The ninth book in Sara Paretsky's popular V.I. Warshawski series has the tough, street-savvy private investigator doing time in a women's maximum security prison for the alleged kidnapping of a security magnate's neglected son. She makes the most of her sentence, investigating the death of an ex-housekeeper-turned-convict, who, last seen in the prison's infirmary, was brutally beaten and mysteriously left to die on the streets of her old neighborhood.

When the body of Deirdre Messenger, wife of a prominent attorney, appears on private detective Vic Warshawski's desk, the cops have a lot of questions. Vic's investigation leads her along a path of slickly concealed domestic abuse and high-level corruption.

Tracking an intruder on the grounds of an empty estate, private investigator V. I. Warshawski discovers the body of a journalist in a pond. The crime's motives appear to be rooted in the turbulent days of the McCarthy era, and in two socially prominent Chicago families, who would much rather keep aspects of their past quiet. Naturally, V.I. is prepared to make some noise, although the consequences may prove deadly.

Ten years ago (in "Early Autumn") Spenser rescued a teenage boy from neglectful and abusive parents. Now he needs Spenser's help again, to solve the mystery of his mother's disappearance.

The genesis of novelist Ann Patchett's bestselling book of essays was, as she tells it, a series of fortuitous events: after being invited to give a commencement speech at her alma mater, Sarah Lawrence College, Patchett showed her speech to her old writing teacher, Alan Garganus, who told her to go back to the drawing board and make the writing more personal and heartfelt; the result was a rousing success, and the speech began to be passed around as a source of inspiration to young people pondering the choices lying ahead of them in life. Now, in an extended form, and with the addition of Chip Kidd's splendid photography and design, WHAT NOW? is available to the general public. The slim, wise, humorous descriptions of Patchett's own convoluted road to success should be inspirational for anyone facing the confusions of the future.