Holly Winter had her hands full with one dog. Still, when therapist Elaine Walsh is found dead, Holly eagerly adopts the orphaned Kimi-and vows to teach her some manners. But when questions arise about Elaine's death-following close on the heels of a patient's suicide-Holly suspects the misbehaving malamute Kimi might be the key witness. Digging for clues all over Cambridge, Holly hopes to untangle a snarl of secrets-and collar a killer!

Its bite is seven times more lethal than a rattler, twenty-five times more deadly than a cobra. It will kill a horse in five minutes. It is nineteen feet long and moves with deadly speed. It is soundless, lashing out at its victim without warning. It is the taipan, the world's deadliest snake. AND NOW IT IS LOOSE. When will it strike again?

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a good white person of liberal leanings must be in want of a Black friend. In the biting, hilarious vein of What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker and We Are Never Meeting in Real Life comes Ben Philippe’s candid memoir-in-essays, chronicling a lifetime of being the Black friend (see also: foreign kid, boyfriend, coworker, student, teacher, roommate, enemy) in predominantly white spaces. In an era in which “I have many black friends” is often a medal of Wokeness, Ben hilariously chronicles the experience of being on the receiving end of those fist bumps. He takes us through his immigrant childhood, from wanting nothing more than friends to sit with at lunch, to his awkward teenage years, to college in the age of Obama, and adulthood in the Trump administration—two sides of the same American coin. Ben takes his role as your new black friend seriously, providing original and borrowed wisdom on stereotypes, slurs, the whole “swimming thing,” how much Beyoncé is too much Beyoncé, Black Girl Magic, the rise of the Karens, affirmative action, the Black Lives Matter movement, and other conversations you might want to have with your new BBFF. Oscillating between the impulse to be "one of the good ones" and the occasional need to excuse himself to the restrooms, stuff his mouth with toilet paper, and scream, Ben navigates his own Blackness as an "Oreo" with too many opinions for his father’s liking, an encyclopedic knowledge of CW teen dramas, and a mouth he can't always control. From cheating his way out of swim tests to discovering stray family members in unlikely places, he finds the punchline in the serious while acknowledging the blunt truths of existing as a Black man in today’s world. Extremely timely, Sure, I’ll Be Your Black Friend is a conversational take on topics both light and heavy, universal and deeply personal, which reveals incisive truths about the need for connection in all of us.

A New York Times and Los Angeles Times Bestseller “Doughty chronicles [death] practices with tenderheartedness, a technician’s fascination, and an unsentimental respect for grief.” —Jill Lepore, The New Yorker Fascinated by our pervasive fear of dead bodies, mortician Caitlin Doughty embarks on a global expedition to discover how other cultures care for the dead. From Zoroastrian sky burials to wish-granting Bolivian skulls, she investigates the world’s funerary customs and expands our sense of what it means to treat the dead with dignity. Her account questions the rituals of the American funeral industry—especially chemical embalming—and suggests that the most effective traditions are those that allow mourners to personally attend to the body of the deceased. Exquisitely illustrated by artist Landis Blair, From Here to Eternity is an adventure into the morbid unknown, a fascinating tour through the unique ways people everywhere confront mortality.

A collection of short stories with vampires.

Teen readers have always been fascinated by monsters, but lately it seems like every other young adult (YA) book is about vampires, zombies, or werewolves. These works are controversial, since they look at aspects of life and human nature that adults prefer to keep hidden from teenagers. But this is also why they are so important: They provide a literal example of how ignoring life's hazards won't make them go away and demonstrate that ignorance of danger puts one at greater risk. In They Suck, They Bite, They Eat, They Kill: The Psychological Meaning of Supernatural Monsters in Young Adult Fiction Joni Bodart examines six different monsters--vampires, shapeshifters, zombies, unicorns, angels, and demons--in YA literature. Bodart first discusses the meaning of these monsters in cultures all over the world. Subsequent chapters explore their history and most important incarnations, comparing the same kind of creatures featured in different titles. This volume also contains interviews with authors who provide additional insight and information, and the bibliography includes a comprehensive list of titles featuring the various monsters. Analyzing the most important and well-written series and titles for teens, They Suck, They Bite, They Eat, They Kill will be useful for parents, teachers, and anyone else hoping to understand why teens want to read books in this genre and what some of the benefits of reading them might be.

As thrilling as any novel, as taut and exciting as any adventure story, Peter Hathaway Capstick’s Death in the Long Grass takes us deep into the heart of darkness to view Africa through the eyes of one of the most renowned professional hunters. Few men can say they have known Africa as Capstick has known it—leading safaris through lion country; tracking man-eating leopards along tangled jungle paths; running for cover as fear-maddened elephants stampede in all directions. And of the few who have known this dangerous way of life, fewer still can recount their adventures with the flair of this former professional hunter-turned-writer. Based on Capstick’s own experiences and the personal accounts of his colleagues, Death in the Long Grassportrays the great killers of the African bush—not only the lion, leopard, and elephant, but the primitive rhino and the crocodile waiting for its unsuspecting prey, the titanic hippo and the Cape buffalo charging like an express train out of control. Capstick was a born raconteur whose colorful descriptions and eye for exciting, authentic detail bring us face to face with some of the most ferocious killers in the world—underrated killers like the surprisingly brave and cunning hyena, silent killers such as the lightning-fast black mamba snake, collective killers like the wild dog. Readers can lean back in a chair, sip a tall, iced drink, and revel in the kinds of hunting stories Hemingway and Ruark used to hear in hotel bars from Nairobi to Johannesburg, as veteran hunters would tell of what they heard beyond the campfire and saw through the sights of an express rifle.