With savage humor, Death Confetti features performance artist Jennifer Robin's autobiographical sketches of Portland, Oregon, from the grunge-era obscurity of the '90s to its current media-darling status. As an only child raised by reclusive grandparents in upstate New York, Jennifer recalls that she felt "anemic for the real." At seventeen she broke loose and made her way to the west coast. "Civilization is a nightmare-illusion," Jennifer writes, "a three-dimensional spreadsheet perpetuated by machines that hypnotize meat." In a city that's stranger than fiction, grocery-store checkers and meth-heads loom as lost gods. We're introduced to the lady tweaker "Chew Toy," who wears moon boots and sings hair metal songs all night as she collects recyclable bottles. Jennifer visits a bar where executives simulate doggie-style sex acts on the dance floor. Then there's all the tales of late-night life on the city's buses and light rail. Jennifer reflects on her early terror in Catholic school and phone calls with her far-out mother, who disclosed that her gynecologist was a murderer. In the all-too-true pages of Death Confetti, Robin remembers her life among noise musicians, junkies, and her escape from a boyfriend who insisted on reviving the lives of hundreds of deceased fruit flies. Death Confetti jolts the senses, and lingers like a mosquito bite to the Portland of everybody's soul.

Apolonia "Lina" Flores is a sock enthusiast, a volleyball player, a science lover, and a girl who's just looking for answers. Even though her house is crammed full of books (her dad's a bibliophile), she's having trouble figuring out some very big questions, like why her dad seems to care about books more than her, why her best friend's divorced mom is obsessed with making cascarones (hollowed eggshells filled with colorful confetti), and, most of all, why her mom died last year. Like colors in cascarones, Lina's life is a rainbow of people, interests, and unexpected changes. In her first novel for young readers, Diana López creates a clever and honest story about a young Latina girl navigating growing pains in her South Texan city.

In BONE CONFETTI, there are two types of survivors at the end of the world--lovers and ghosts who die, are revived, and die again. When all that is left is the terrible residue of memory, lovers and ghosts try their best to make do, collecting debris wherever they go in the attempt to fashion a new sense of humanity.

Peter Lovesey, MWA Grand Master and titan of the English detective novel, returns readers to Bath with the eighteenth mystery in his critically acclaimed Peter Diamond series. As a New Year begins in Bath, Ben Brace proposes to his long-term girlfriend, Caroline, the daughter of notorious crime baron Joe Irving, who is coming to the end of a prison sentence. The problem is that Ben's father, George, is the Deputy Chief Constable. A more uncomfortable set of in-laws would be hard to imagine. But mothers and sons are a formidable force: a wedding in the Abbey and reception in the Roman Baths are arranged before the career-obsessed DCC can step in. Peter Diamond, Bath's head of CID, is appalled to be put in charge of security on the day. Ordered to be discreet, he packs a gun and a guest list in his best suit and must somehow cope with potential killers, gang rivals, warring parents, bossy photographers and straying bridesmaids. The laid-back Joe Irving seems oblivious to the danger he is in from rival gang leaders, while Brace can't wait for the day to end. Will the photo session be a literal shoot? Will Joe Irving's speech as father of the bride be his last words? Can Diamond pull off a miracle, avert a tragedy and send the happy couple on their honeymoon?

What do reviews of the Winnipeg music scene have in common with crappy advice on growing a garden? The worm. This book’s worm is Steve Schmolaris, a man of discerning taste with over forty-five years of servitude and dedication to Winnipeg music under his belt, who has devoted his life to extolling its virtues, who delicately unfolds each song—to eat, to hold, to plant like seeds—to reflect their singular beauty and uniqueness back to them. Here, you will find a compendium of Winnipeg’s proud, fourth-best local music review site of the same name, written in the same acerbic, confrontational voice readers will be used to. Taking up an eclectic range of artists and genres, Bad Gardening Advice’s reviews take many forms, from mock interviews to recipes to love letters, peppered by Schmolaris’s musings on death, lost love, and the musicians’ sex appeal. This original and inventive collection will make a great addition to the bookshelves of anyone close to the Winnipeg music scene—especially those in it. In Bad Gardening Advice, some of the artists reviewed are professionals. Some of them are amateurs. Most of them are weirdos. But if you know how to look, all of them are doing something interesting. All of them have something worth making music about. Welcome to the Bad Garden!

In Warfighter, Colonel Jesse L. Johnson, one of the most decorated living American veterans, recounts the action-packed true-life tale of a man who stood and fought at the crossroads of history. Spanning forty years of conflict, from the jungles of Vietnam to the deserts of Iran and Iraq, never has a modern military memoir covered such a vast landscape of all-out warfare. Never has one man fought on the frontlines of so many of America’s most heroic battles. Johnson led the most elite forces on operations that defined eras past and present, mentoring young soldiers who would rise to become some of America’s greatest generals. He held the ear of princes, kings, presidents, and even Hollywood movie stars. With an all-star cast worthy of an epic war film, this extraordinary hero’s journey sheds new light on some of the most transformative events of our time—crises, conflicts and covert operations that have shaped the world as we know it today. More important, Warfighter offers us a deeper understanding of the personal sacrifice and human toll of a lifetime at war, and the honor-bound code of a man whose instinct in battle was to always charge ahead of those under his command—into the fight.

For readers of Being Mortal and When Breath Becomes Air, the acclaimed founder of Death over Dinner offers a practical, inspiring guide to life's most difficult yet important conversation. Of the many critical conversations we will all have throughout our lifetime, few are as important as the ones discussing death—and not just the practical considerations, such as DNRs and wills, but what we fear, what we hope, and how we want to be remembered. Yet few of these conversations are actually happening. Inspired by his experience with his own father and countless stories from others who regret not having these conversations, Michael Hebb cofounded Death Over Dinner—an organization that encourages people to pull up a chair, break bread, and really talk about the one thing we all have in common. Death Over Dinner has been one of the most effective end-of-life awareness campaigns to date; in just three years, it has provided the framework and inspiration for more than a hundred thousand dinners focused on having these end-of-life conversations. As Arianna Huffington said, "We are such a fast-food culture, I love the idea of making the dinner last for hours. These are the conversations that will help us to evolve." Let's Talk About Death (over Dinner) offers keen practical advice on how to have these same conversations—not just at the dinner table, but anywhere. There's no one right way to talk about death, but Hebb shares time—and dinner—tested prompts to use as conversation starters, ranging from the spiritual to the practical, from analytical to downright funny and surprising. By transforming the most difficult conversations into an opportunity, they become celebratory and meaningful—ways that not only can change the way we die, but the way we live.