Serendib: one of the many names for Sri Lanka, Ceylon, Taprobane -- an island nation south of India, rich in tea and spices, vegetables, fruit and fish, possessing a complex multicultural cuisine. A Taste of Serendib is a collection of unexpected, delightful, fortunate flavors, forty-five recipes to tantalize your tastebuds and satisfy your stomach.

We come together with other Sri Lankans-homelander and diaspora, Sinhalese and Tamil, Buddhist and Hindu and Christian and Muslim-over delicious shared meals. Sri Lanka has been a multi-ethnic society for over two thousand years, with neighbors of different ethnicities, languages, religions, living side by side. We try to teach our children to be welcoming to all, to share our unique cultural traditions. That is part of what it means to be Sri Lankan, what it has always meant. Dark roasted curry powder, a fine attention to the balance of salty-sour-sweet, wholesome red rice and toasted curry leaves, plenty of coconut milk and chili heat. These are the flavors of Sri Lanka, a South Asian island at the crossroads of centuries of migration and trade. Can we choose the good parts of our culture to cherish, and leave the darker aspects behind? I hope so. I hope food can help provide a pathway there. Come together at our table, sharing milk rice and pol sambol, paruppu and crab curry. Linger over the chai-just one more cup. Eat, drink, and share joy. In A Feast of Serendib, novelist and post-colonial academic Mary Anne Mohanraj introduces her mother's cooking and her own American adaptations, providing an introduction to Sri Lankan American cooking that is straightforward enough for a beginner, yet nuanced enough to capture the unique flavors of Sri Lankan cooking.

Serendip takes us on a rich and rewarding journey through Sri Lanka's traditional foods, its family-orientated culture and its colourful approach to life. Acclaimed chef Peter Kuruvita has reached deep into kitchen experiences with his grandmother and aunties, and has travelled the markets and stalls of the lush green island, to bring us this comprehensive collection of Sri Lankan recipes and a host of heart-warming stories. Offering Sri Lankan curries of every kind, as well as traditional snacks, breads and sticky sweet treats, Serendip is a treasury of spicy meals and tasty morsels.

Like the sweet heat of a palate-pleasing curry or the brilliant radiance of bougainvillea, the short stories in Mary Anne Mohanraj's Bodies in Motion will delight the senses and sensibilities. Her tales follow two generations of two families living on the cusp of disparate worlds, America and Sri Lanka -- their lives and ties shaped, strengthened, devastated, and altered by the emigrant-immigrant ebb and flow. Through stunning, effervescent prose, intimate moments are beautifully distilled, revealing the tug-of-war between generations and gender in stories sensual and honest, chronicling love, ambition, and the spiritual and sexual quests of mothers and daughters, fathers and sons.

Imagine a hot tub party where a married couple tests the boundaries of fidelity. A model who finds herself unaccountably aroused as she poses for a watercolor artist. A pool of water on a desert road and two lovers who know how to make the most of it. This is Aqua Erotica, a sensuous tasting of desire's liquid, ecstatic other worlds. Aqua Erotica is a siren's song, a book so unforgettably sexy that you will want to take it with you to the bath, the sauna, the night-lit pool. What's amazing is that you can. The first-ever waterproof book for adults. The most seductive collection of original literary erotica ever gathered under one cover. Aqua Erotica is a book that quite literally goes places you never imagined books could go. Featuring today's boldest erotic voices: Francesca Lia Block Poppy Z. Brite Louise Erdrich Carol Queen Marcy Sheiner Cecilia Tan Barry Yourgrau and many others --

Thief. Rebel. Bandit. Hero? Chaya usually has an answer for everything. But stealing the Queen's jewels, even for the best of reasons, is not something she can talk her way out of. So she makes her great escape on the back of a gorgeous, stolen elephant and leads her friends on a noisy, fraught, joyous adventure through the jungle where revolution is stirring and leeches lurk. Will stealing these jewels be the beginning or the end of everything for the intrepid gang?

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • 80 stir-fried-saucy, sweet-and-tangy mostly Thai-ish recipes from the mom who taught Chrissy (almost) everything she knows, Pepper Teigen! IACP AWARD FINALIST • ONE OF THE BEST COOKBOOKS OF THE YEAR: Time Out, Food52 Whether she’s frying up a batch of her crispy-garlicky wings for John’s football Sundays or making Chrissy her favorite afternoon snack—instant ramen noodles with ground pork, cabbage, scallions, and cilantro—Pepper Teigen loves feeding her famously fabulous family. Through these eighty recipes, Pepper teaches you how to make all her hits. You’ll find playful twists on Thai classics, such as Fried Chicken Larb, which is all crunch with lots of lime, chile, and fish sauce, and Pad Thai Brussels Sprouts, which bring the fun tastes and textures of pad thai to a healthy sheet of pan-roasted vegetables. And there are the traditional dishes Pepper grew up with, like khao tod crispy rice salad and tom zapp hot and sour soup. Pepper shares stories about her life, too, such as how she used to sell sweet-savory kanom krok coconut-and-corn pancakes to commuters when she was ten years old in Thailand (now she makes them with her granddaughter, Luna, as a treat) and how, once she moved to the United States, she would cobble together tastes of home with ingredients she could find in her new homeland, like turning shredded cabbage and carrots into a mock-papaya salad. Influenced by Thailand, California, and everywhere in between, Pepper’s mouthwatering recipes and sharp sense of humor will satisfy anyone craving a taste of something sensational, whether that’s a peek into America’s most-talked- about family’s kitchen or a rich and spicy spoonful of Massaman Beef Curry.

A whimsical tale of a young poet who goes on a journey to find poetry, encountering dragons, handsome young men, ravens, and hazel trees along her way.