Eat, Memory: Great Writers At The Table is a highly enjoyable collection of essays taken from the New York Times. There are pieces by Kirin Desai, Billy Collins, Dorothy Alison, Tom Perrota, and many other current literary worthies. Yiyun Li's "Orange Crush, about his experience with Orange Tang in China as a teenager is particularly engaging. ...More

In The Way We Work renowned illustrator David Macauley applies the same principles of detailed visual narration he used in his classic The Way Things Work to the subject of the human body. The result is absolutely breathtaking....More

The Monsters of Templeton, a surprise hit in hardcover, makes the scene in paperback this week. Sporting the same strikingly elegant cover, and filled with personal and physical archeology, a prehistoric monster in the deeps of Lake Glimmerglass, and a nicely varied narrative filled with letters, photos, and dark mystery, The Monsters of Templeton is definitely worth taking out for a spin around the nightstand....More

Moloka'i, gives an historical fiction account of the same subject handled in John Tayman's popular history The Colony two years ago, the nineteenth century leper colony on Molokai. Tayman's account was carried by the interesting nature of his subject, but lacked a compelling human narrative. Brennert brings both to the table in this account of a seventeen year old girl, Rachel, who is sent to the colony. ...More

Jean de La Fontaine is certainly one of those persons who doesn't seem to require a first name. This fifteenth century poet's fables have commonly been rendered into prose, and this marvelous new translation by Craig Hill, The Complete Fables of Lafontaine brings La Fontaine's masterpiece to us in verse. Antonia Fraser declares that "La Fontaine's Fables are one of the treasures of world literature," and Hill has borne her out. A treat on many levels, these fables won't be perfectly happy until they are read aloud. Their energy, wit and playful cynicism are as captivating as ever, and yet they also offer a fascinating window into the culture of Louis the XIV's court....More

Few things tickle a child's fancy more than the innocent mischief making of dogs, and few picture books have more perfectly captured and bottled that adorable mischief than Elizabeth Blumle's new Dogs on the Bed. Bluemle's exuberant but tightly constructed verses bound across the page and Anne Wilsdorf's playful illustrations provide the ideal compliment. Indeed, that anonymous medieval poet who wrote the prologue to Aucassin and Nicolette could just as easily have been referring to Dogs on the Bed when he wrote.>

"There is no man living neath the sun
So outwearied so foredone
Sick and woeful, worn and sad
But is healed, but is glad
tis so sweet."
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