Extreme BirdsDominic Couzens

Holy heck! Who knew birds were so interesting and diverse? I mean, yes, lots of colors, some in the tundra, some in trees, some in water, big feathers, little bills, twit twit, caw caw. But birds with neurotoxins on their feathers? Or ones that create and use tools? …

Steve Berry

Like fanciful action/adventure/historical stories but have too much self-respect to read Dan Brown (Da Vinci Code)? Try one of Berry’s fast-moving tales. The Charlemagne Pursuit has all the excitement of a Bond film with a heavy dose of Indiana Jones-style psuedo-archeaeology. Fun, silly, unbelievable and very …

ThunderstruckErik Larson

Thunderstruck, by the author of The Devil in the White City, is another action- and fact-filled non-fiction book. Weaving together the stories of Guglielmo Marconi, inventor of the wireless, and the infamous murderer Dr. Crippen, Larson makes two disparate stories overlap and interweave into one. Based …

Live Nude Elf Reverend Jen

Not a book for this with rigid morals or no sense of humor, Reverend Jen covers her year as a sex writer for Nerve magazine. While most of her experiments are scary/gross/dangerous they also have a tinge of quirky dorkiness that makes her lovable… in a deranged sort …

The Baker Street LettersMichael Robertson

The premise of The Baker Street Letters is probably the best part of the book. Lawyer Reggie Heath rents the offices at 221B Baker Street. As part of his contract, all letters sent care of Sherlock Holmes are to be answered by a member of his staff. A …

Murder at Graverly ManorDaniel Edward Craig

By far the best mystery I’ve read in months, Murder at Gravely Manor is creepy and gripping. Former hotel manager Trevor Lambert decides that his life-long ambition is to own a B&B, despite never having mentioned this ambition previously. When he finds that he eccentric Lady Gravely …

Christopher Marley

On our honeymoon last year we stopped by the gallery in Prairie Edge Art Gallerie in South Dakota. A few of Marley’s insect pieces were on display and we were fascinated. Each piece is a small collection of real, exotic insects. Pheromone shows many of his pieces, along …

Daniel Gilbert

As long as your brain’s guess about the next word turns out to be right, turning black squiggles into ideas, scenes, characters, and concepts, blissfully unaware that your nexting brain is predicting the future of the sentence at a fantastic rate. It is only when your brain predicts