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Mary Roach is the author of several books of science journalism that cover the spectrum of sex, space travel, and cadavers. In Gulp we follow our food from mastication to, well here is an excerpt from the book, “Yes, men and women eat meals. But they also ingest nutrients. They grind and sculpt them into a moistened bolus that is delivered into a self-kneading sack of hydrochloric acid and then dumped into a tubular leach field, where it is converted into the most powerful taboo in history.”

On the way through the digestive system Roach takes detours like how dog food is "tested" and how the

Roshar is a world beset by powerful and devastating storms. Yet these are minor compared the desolation that is about to come this world. To face the oncoming devastation, a lowly slave, a would-be-thief, and a weary soldier, must find the strength within themselves to turn back the tide and become heroes.

The first book of a planned ten-book series, The Way of Kings is a great start to the Stormlight Archives. This is the series that Brandon Sanderson has been wanting to put on paper since he first started writing. Be warned that this is a long book at just over a thousand pages, and can

Chris Gardner and his toddler son spent a year living on the streets of San Francisco, in and out of shelters and run down hotels. All while working in the financial district to get a job that would provide them with enough to live on.

Ultimately, Chris becomes the Chief Executive of Gardner Rich & Company, a multimillion-dollar brokerage. Today, Chris is an avid philanthropist and motivational speaker.

Born in the south to a father he never knew, and a loving mother who was jailed twice by an abusive partner, Gardner not only survives, but succeeds, where so many with similar backgrounds

Take your running to heart – Heart Zone Training (HZT), that is!  Long-time ultra-marathoner and triathlete Sally Edwards collaborated with Dr. Carl Foster to compile decades of experience and research into Be a Better Runner.  Their resulting HZT program allows each runner to tailor training programs to his or her own fitness level by targeting specific heart rates based on a threshold heart rate, which will be unique to each person.    I’ve recently begun dabbling in distance races, and while I’ll always be a mid-pack runner, I want to make the most of my experience in training.  This

Imagine a world that doesn’t know its own rules.  No cell phones. No Internet. No stock market. No money. No legal system. A third of the world’s population wiped out in a single night and the count rising by millions every day.  The human race is an endangered species.”  So starts Iced, the first book in Karen Marie Moning’s Dani O’Malley trilogy.  This supernatural contemporary fantasy is a follow-up to the bestselling Fever series and begins chronologically after the Fever series’ final book, Shadowfever.  However, unlike the Fever series, the main characters of this novel are 14-year-old

I had to read this book twice to grasp its power. In its richness, it honestly deserves a third reading. The book jacket describes The Yellow Birds as "…the unforgettable story of two soldiers trying to stay alive." And it is that, but it’s also, and I would argue even more so, a cautionary tale.

Bartle, Murph, and even Seargent Sterling are still very young men when they are sent to Al Tafar, Iraq with the U.S. Army. Of the three, Sterling is the oldest at twenty four and has been to Al Tafar twice before. As a seasoned, higher-ranking soldier, Sterling pairs Bartle with Murph telling them,

When Ron Currie’s love tells him she needs space and that he should leave, he does. He moves to the Caribbean where he is supposed to work on his next novel and wait patiently for her to request his return. That’s not what happens. He spends his days drinking heavily, cohabitating with a young college drop-out, and writing the completely wrong novel. Upon his failed suicide, Curry realizes that he can just disappear; and he does. But just for a while. And when he resurfaces he finds that his life, or rather, his death, has taken a decidedly unanticipated turn. And now he must deal with the

In the introduction, Kaling says of herself, “I’m only marginally qualified to be giving advice at all. My body mass index is certainly not ideal, I frequently use my debit card to buy things that cost less than three dollars, because I never have cash on me, and my bedroom is so untidy it looks like vandals ransacked the Anthropologie Sale section. I’m kind of a mess.” And yet, she’s written a compelling, humorous memoir, with occasional advice. The advice she does offer is based on her own, real-life experiences and all the more valuable for its lack of childhood trauma.

As a writer

I typically roll my eyes at romance novels--they are so fake! But Eleanor & Park is different. Perhaps because Eleanor and Park are different. Eleanor Douglas and Park Sheridan--the lead characters in this romance--are different from most romance novel characters, but also just different. Different from their boorish peers. Different from their lame teachers. Different from their parents. And it's their feelings of being different that brings them together in a glorious display of misfit love.

Eleanor and Park meet on the bus. It's 1986 in Omaha, Nebraska. Eleanor is the new kid at school

At first glance, One Shot at Forever, is obviously a book about baseball. Don’t let the title fool you, however, because it’s really about so much more. Set against the backdrop of the 1970 and 1971 baseball seasons, Ballard tells to stories of Lynn Sweet, the Macon High School baseball players, their families, and their town. As a new English teacher, Sweet was already causing a stir in Macon, despite his popularity among his students. What with his long hair, bar patronage, and “dangerous reading assignments”, many parents were concerned. When he reluctantly agreed to coach the baseball

When a missing 9-year-old girl from a small town in southern Missouri is found dead and a second has gone missing, Frank Curry, the editor from a small Chicago newspaper, sends Camille Preaker to get the scoop.  Both events just happen to have occurred in her hometown, Wind Gap, where her mother, stepfather and younger sister still live and to where Camille has no desire to return.  She comes from a very—maybe dysfunctional is too tame a word to describe her family, but I will say it—dysfunctional family.  Because it is a small newspaper and funds are limited, Camille’s editor believes she can

Before reading Doc by Mary Doria Russell, the only thing I knew about the famous Doc Holiday was that he looked remarkably like Val Kilmer and often suggested his peers might be Daisies. What a delight to read about this fascinating and complex gentleman. Russell tells Doc’s story from the very beginning; John Henry Holiday’s birth. His hold on life was tenuous from the start, as he was born with a hare-lip. Only because his uncle was a skilled surgeon, who performed the cutting-edge surgery, did Doc survive at all. His mother, to whom he was devoted, passed when he was fifteen of tuberculosis

In The Leftovers, Perrotta puts human relationships under a microscope, sometimes to chilling effect. The town of Mapleton has never stopped reeling after the Sudden Departure, when large numbers of random people simply vanished into thin air. When the smoke clears, those left behind not only grieve for their friends and family who are suddenly gone, but also wonder why they were spared (or not spared). Cults are formed, hate groups emerge, and others just try to pick up where they left off. The story focuses on Mayor Kevin Garvey. While he didn’t lose anyone directly to the Sudden Departure

Catherynne M. Valente's The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making is a wonderful, magical fairy-tale fantasy that is aimed at children but doesn't talk down to them—and is written in a way that will appeal to adults, too. It's a fantasy in the same vein as Alice in Wonderland, The Phantom Tollbooth, and L. Frank Baum's Oz books. In The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland, 12-year-old September is whisked away from her home in Omaha, Nebraska by the Green Wind and taken to Fairyland on his steed, the Leopard of Little Breezes. September has a wondrous, mysterious

Not being a regular romance reader, I can’t say how Silk is for Seduction compares to its romance brethren. I will say, while I found the story to be absolutely ridiculous, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Marcelline Noirot, along with her two sisters and daughter, has clawed her way out of poverty and a cholera epidemic to become a contender in the English milliner business. In the hopes of winning a key customer from her sole competitor, Marcelline travels to France to woo the Duke of Clevedon. No, not for his affection, but for the money he would bring to her shop should his intended bride to have

I freely admit it—I had to make a second, running start at Dark Harvest. But once I got past the idea that the evil presence holding the entire town captive was a pumpkin-headed boy with a butcher knife, the story was plenty creepy for my taste. Every Halloween, all boys between the ages of sixteen and nineteen are set loose on the town to prevent the October Boy from getting to the church before midnight. The winner earns the one and only ticket out of town. Every Halloween, that is, until Pete McCormick’s sixteenth year when he figures out what the October Boy is really about and challenges

Even if you have no desire to ever own backyard chickens, Chick Days is wonderful fun. After making a case for keeping chickens, Woginrich describes her top ten breeds, and then illustrates the day-to-day development of three varieties of chickens. Professionally photographed, the pictures and layout are easy to follow, fun to look at, and complement the accompanying text perfectly.

Woginrich’s background in web design lends itself well to book design, and the book couldn’t be more informative. Not owning chickens, I have to trust Woginrich knows her stuff. If you are interested in her

No one loves anthropomorphisization more than me. So Unlikely Friendships is just the kind of book I like to savor over a warm mug of cocoa. Holland describes “friendships” between species, sometimes even predators with prey. Everyone knows about the gorilla Koko and her kittens, which are included here. But my favorites include the hippopotamus and the pygmy goat (seriously, what’s funnier than a goat standing on a hippo?), the macaque and the kitten, the elephant and the stray dog, the salty dog and the dolphins…oh, never mind, they’re all my favorites! 

With only three to four pages

Published in 1978, Once a Runner is dated; but charmingly so. While there is a noticeable absence of iPods, cell phones, and cable television, exclamations of “Great God in Heaven” and “they don’t know a flying you-know-what about spring sports” are the most notable indicators. Quentin Cassidy is a collegiate “miler”. After he is expelled from the fictional Southeastern University, fellow runner, friend and former Olympian Bruce Denton mentors him as he prepares to break the four minute mile. Olympic and professional athletes will recognize the driving force behind Quentin’s training program

I am not exactly a huge football fan...ok so about the only reason I will attend a football game is to watch the marching band. However, there is one book that has gotten me more than a little interested in the sport, Dairy Queen by Catherine Gilbert Murdock.

The book follows the summer of DJ Schwenk, who works on her families struggling dairy farm in Wisconsin. Her family's life, and the lives of everyone in town, revolves around high school football. DJ's brothers were both football stars who have moved on to college scholarships and a chance at the NFL. DJ is shocked with the coach of the

For me, the novelty of year-long project books wore off long before A.J. Jacobs dulled my enthusiasm with The Year of Living Biblically and Gretchen Rubin killed my tolerance completely with The Happiness Project. Happily, I didn’t notice from the sub-title that The Quarter-acre Farm is one of these very projects.

In 2008, amidst mad-cow disease, sky-rocketing fuel costs, salmonella outbreaks and news reports of genetically altered food and pesticide risks, Spring Warren announced to her family that she would transform their suburban lawn into a garden from which they would eat. And thus, a

Would my review seem unprofessional if I simply said, “I la-la-la-loooooved this book” and left it at that? John Bingham recounts his transformation from a child who played for the sheer joy of it to a small and un-athletic high school music geek, desperate to be one of the cool school athletes. He then recounts his next transformation, from an over-weight, beer-swilling, chain-smoker to an “adult onset athlete,” running simply for the joy of it. Most of us can relate to the crushing disappointments and humiliations inherent to competitive sports. While An Accidental Athlete focuses on

Chloe Pinter loves helping families realize their dream of having children through her job at a private adoption agency. And she’s good at it. But as one family’s dreams come closer to fruition, another family’s dreams are shattered, and Chloe is left to pick up the pieces.

In Chosen, Hoffman examines the motives of a private adoption agency and its staff, adoptive families, and birth mothers unable to care for their children. In some cases the situations are heart-wrenching, in others…well, in others it’s heart-wrenching. Each family, whether it is the Novas in persistent pursuit of a

After an adult Halpern moves in with his parents, he starts tweeting things his Dad says. In short order so many people are following his tweets that the media contacts him for interviews and appearances. Those tweets are compiled and found in Sh*t My Dad Says.  While I found most of the things his father says hilarious, I appreciate that some people are disturbed, not only by the foul language he uses, but the manner in which he addresses his children. For me, what saves the book from condemnation is that when told in context, it is obvious that Halpern Sr. loves his children. This is not

Being a public librarian with access to an unending supply of books, it takes something really special to make me want to part with $27.00 just so I can call it my own. Ruhlman has found the secret in Ratio and my copy should be in my mailbox by tomorrow. It's a weird format for a cookbook in that Ruhlman buries his recipes in parts or chapters that explain the basic ratios for, for instance, doughs and batters. By explaining the how and why of the most basic dough, Ruhlman opens up doors for experimentation and adventure, over the execution of a perfect recipe. After reading part one, I made

It happens to all library users sooner or later. A book, for reasons unknown, appears on your hold shelf and you have no idea when or why you requested it. This time it was Flower Children by Maxine Swann, and while I have no recollection of requesting it, I’m glad I did. Told in short story format by the children of devout hippies, Flower Children offers a glimpse into a culture where children are raised without limits and adults show little restraint. Interestingly, the children know they have been exposed to things other children have not seen and it makes them uncomfortable, their coming

When Annie and William Taylor witness an execution in the woods they run to the safety of the first passing car. But the driver isn’t just a passerby; he is one of the executioners. They escape and are on the run again, this time knowing they can’t trust anybody. Eduardo Villatoro, a newly retired detective, just happens to be in town following up on some unlikely clues to the only unsolved murder of his career. As Villatoro gets closer to solving the crime, he also gets closer to Annie and William. But will he get there in time? Alternating viewpoints over a single weekend make the bulk of

As a fan of the show Mystery Science Theater 3000, I have a great appreciation for Michael J. Nelson. Sure, some people prefer Joel, the first host, but I started with Mike and have always had a soft spot for his dorky delivery and hapless enthusiasm. And as the head writer, his wit was a major force behind the overall flavor of the show’s ten seasons. So I'm happy to say that his skill in crafting funny material transfers well to his books, which include the comedic essay collections Mike Nelson's Movie Megacheese and Mike Nelson's Mind over Matters. While Movie Megacheese focuses

Warning: there is a dog on the cover of this book. There is a dog in the book. There is a dog living in Paul’s apartment, and she is a special dog. Don’t ask me if the dog dies. I already know you don’t want to read another book in which the dog dies. So don’t ask, because the book isn’t about the dog. The book is about Paul. Just as in Garth Stein’s The Art of Racing in the Rain and Susan Wilson’s One Good Dog Nelson has pulled the old bait and switch. There is a dog (and I won’t tell you if he dies, so don’t ask), but the book isn’t about the dog.

Paul is just a regular guy leading a

I recall, as a fairly sheltered college student, traveling to New York City for the wedding of a distant relative. It hadn’t occurred to me that there could be neighborhoods in this crowded place of constant motion. When I supposed that it must get lonely living where you would never serendipitously bump into someone you knew, a cousin tried to set me straight by explaining that people frequent the same places and thus you would often encounter the same people. I don’t think I truly grasped what he was saying until reading The New Yorkers.

The inhabitants of a New York neighborhood, all with