National Network for Equitable Library Service

David spends his days as an underworked copy writer for an ad agency and his nights lost in old war movies, fantasizing about his strange teenage cousin and revisiting his father's suicide. His dreary life is upended when he finds himself at the mysterious Chaos Farm, a lavish wilderness retreat populated by those seeking to right their lives' imbalances through New Age games and rites of necromancy. In a paranormal experiment gone awry, they inadvertently raise a mysterious bloodthirsty creature that may be a) the Devil, b) David's deceased father, c) George C. Scott as General George S.

Milo doesn't quite have it all together. His acting career has stalled. His girlfriend dumped him. His miserable father has vanished, and people keep moving into his house. When Robertson, the autistic eleven-year-old next door – the only person Milo really likes – gets bullied, Milo is finally spurred to action. Milo being Milo, that doesn't really go his way either, and soon people are winding up in the hospital, lost in the woods or possibly returned from the dead. Milosz is a novel about family: the blood kind, the accidental kind and the kind you rediscover on reality TV.

As Gina gets ready for her Christmas wedding, all is quiet in Steeltown. Then she's robbed, cousin Jimmy has a heart attack, and someone in the city has hijacked a transport truck full of booze. But who' And why' Gina knows bootlegging used to be a family business, but they stopped that in the '30s. Didn't they' Gina and Nico work feverishly to keep the latest bungled family matter under wraps, but the police are closing in. And, once again, everything points to the Holy Cannoli Retirement Home.

When your son's a genius, it's hard not to brag-even in the afterlife-in this "funny and fascinating novel about Yiddish mothers in Paradise" (Le Point). Rebecca Rosenthal, a thirty-eight-year-old mother and professor at the Sorbonne, suddenly finds herself in Heaven, surrounded by the mothers of some of the most illustrious Jewish men in recent history-including Albert Einstein, Marcel Proust, Sigmund Freud, Woody Allen, and the Marx Brothers.

An Albuquerque pottery dealer looking for artifacts finds murder and intrigue in this "smartly funny" series (Anne Hillerman, author of Spider Woman's Daughter). A dealer in ancient Native American pottery, Hubert Schuze has spent years searching the public lands of New Mexico for artwork that would otherwise remain buried. According to the US government, he's a thief, but Hubie knows the real crime would be to allow age-old traditions to die.

The summer season on Cape Cod is over-now it's time for the real fun to begin. Dominick is always just passing through. He is a professional house guest who follows the sun and the leisure class from resort to resort. But this winter he lingers on a quaint New England island and in spite of his best intentions becomes involved in the travails of his eccentric geriatric hosts. An environmental protest against a proposed liquid natural gas terminal turns ugly, and by accident and happenstance Dominick becomes a mistaken suspect in terrorist bombings.

I feel like I'm about to pass out, but that won't do much for my new reputation as a non-dork, so I bury my head in the Book instead. There's not much there, really-just the senior portrait of every girl in my class, and below each photo, space for me to record her measurements-once I get her measurements, that is. From his flute-playing prowess to his nerdy reputation, Kevin Mopsely epitomizes uncool. When popular jock Brandon Trent appoints Kevin to compile the Book of Busts-a record of the bust, waist, and hip measurements of every senior girl-Kevin fears he's out of his league.

"Jane Sinner snarked her way into my heart, and she's never leaving. Prepare to fall hard for this hilarious, heartfelt gem of a book."-Becky Albertalli, author of Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens AgendaIt's Kind of a Funny Story meets Daria in the darkly hilarious tale of a teen's attempt to remake her public image and restore inner peace through reality TV. The only thing 17-year-old Jane Sinner hates more than failure is pity. After a personal crisis and her subsequent expulsion from high school, she's going nowhere fast.

A sharp and bitingly funny novel about a professor whose calm-ish midwestern life gives way to a vortex of crises-and her attempts to salvage the pieces without going to pieces herself In the space of a few torrid months on the Iowa prairie, Phillipa Maakestad-long-married theater professor and mother of an unstable daughter-grapples with a life turned upside down. After falling headlong into a passionate affair during a semester spent teaching in Ohio, Phillipa returns home to Iowa for her daughter Ginny's wedding.

From the New York Times best-selling author of The Middlesteins comes a wickedly funny novel about a thirty-nine-year-old single, childfree woman who defies convention as she seeks connection. Who is Andrea Bern' When her therapist asks the question, Andrea knows the right things to say: she's a designer, a friend, a daughter, a sister. But it's what she leaves unsaid'she's alone, a drinker, a former artist, a shrieker in bed, captain of the sinking ship that is her flesh'that feels the most true.