Clumsy acrobats tumbling through the circuses of philosophy, architecture, politics, religion and just about anything else you can think of, Steve Shavel's wild meditations drift and whirl with spastic brilliance among language's most earnest and playful coincidences.

You want it to be the wedding you’ve always dreamed of: a sunny day, a beautiful dress, a gorgeous cake, and a chapel filled with flowers, friends, family, and the one you love. But, how do you get there when your mom is miffed, your fiancée feels left out, your bridesmaid isn’t speaking to you, and your future in-laws want to bring their grandkids. Dr. Rita, New York City’s “Marrying Therapist,” has all the answers. This enthusiastically upbeat and enlightening book is a great help to any bride-to-be, and full of practical solutions before, during and after the wedding.

A detailed study of marriage among the Maduzai, a tribal society in Afghan Turkistan.

Draws on the principles of philosophy and science to explore the question of man's existence on Earth.

Witty, compassionate, restless, Knox fearlessly takes on NASCAR, numismatics, canned Spam -- and makes it all fascinating.

The masterly debut novel from “an exquisitely astute writer” (The Boston Globe), about growing up in—and out of—the suffocating constraints of small-town America. “Compact and beautiful . . . This novel bordering on a novella punches above its weight.”—The New York Times “Very Cold People reminded me of My Brilliant Friend.”—The New Yorker ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker, NPR, Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, Good Housekeeping “My parents didn’t belong in Waitsfield, but they moved there anyway.” For Ruthie, the frozen town of Waitsfield, Massachusetts, is all she has ever known. Once home to the country’s oldest and most illustrious families—the Cabots, the Lowells: the “first, best people”—by the tail end of the twentieth century, it is an unforgiving place awash with secrets. Forged in this frigid landscape Ruthie has been dogged by feelings of inadequacy her whole life. Hers is no picturesque New England childhood but one of swap meets and factory seconds and powdered milk. Shame blankets her like the thick snow that regularly buries nearly everything in Waitsfield. As she grows older, Ruthie slowly learns how the town’s prim facade conceals a deeper, darker history, and how silence often masks a legacy of harm—from the violence that runs down the family line to the horrors endured by her high school friends, each suffering a fate worse than the last. For Ruthie, Waitsfield is a place to be survived, and a girl like her would be lucky to get out alive. In her eagerly anticipated debut novel, Sarah Manguso has written, with characteristic precision, a masterwork on growing up in—and out of—the suffocating constraints of a very old, and very cold, small town. At once an ungilded portrait of girlhood at the crossroads of history and social class as well as a vital confrontation with an all-American whiteness where the ice of emotional restraint meets the embers of smoldering rage, Very Cold People is a haunted jewel of a novel from one of our most virtuosic literary writers.

The author of "The Groom's Survival Manual" now offers the engaged couple hip and helpful advice for navigating the land of weird wedding stuff in order to get ready for the big day. Illustrations.