A collection of poems, both the doomy and the daft, the whimsical and the weird.

The joy of finding an old box in the attic filled with postcards, invitations, theater programs, laundry lists, and pay stubs is discovering the stories hidden within them. The paper trails of our lives -- or ephemera -- may hold sentimental value, reminding us of great grandparents. They chronicle social history. They can be valuable as collectibles or antiques. But the greatest pleasure is that these ordinary documents can reconstruct with uncanny immediacy the drama of day-to-day life. The Encyclopedia of Ephemera is the first work of its kind, providing an unparalleled sourcebook with over 400 entries that cover all aspects of everyday documents and artifacts, from bookmarks to birth certificates to lighthouse dues papers. Continuing a tradition that started in the Victorian era, when disposable paper items such as trade cards, die-cuts and greeting cards were accumulated to paste into scrap books, expert Maurice Rickards has compiled an enormous range of paper collectibles from the obscure to the commonplace. His artifacts come from around the world and include such throw-away items as cigarette packs and crate labels as well as the ubiquitous faxes, parking tickets, and phone cards of daily life. As this major new reference shows, simple slips of paper can speak volumes about status, taste, customs, and taboos, revealing the very roots of popular culture.

Often regarded as trivial and disposable, printed ephemera, such as tickets, playbills and handbills, was essential in the development of eighteenth-century culture. In this original study, richly illustrated with examples from across the period, Gillian Russell examines the emergence of the cultural category of printed ephemera, its relationship with forms of sociability, the history of the book, and ideas of what constituted the boundaries of literature and literary value. Russell explores the role of contemporary collectors such as Sarah Sophia Banks in preserving such material, arguing for 'ephemerology' as a distinctive strand of popular antiquarianism. Multi-disciplinary in scope, The Ephemeral Eighteenth Century reveals new perspectives on the history of theatre, the fiction of Maria Edgeworth and Jane Austen, and on the history of bibliography, as well as highlighting the continuing relevance of the concept of ephemerality to how we connect through social media today.

In this mystery from the author of Manor of Dying, Hamptons interior designer and antiques picker Meg Barrett uncovers a veil of spooky goings-on... The first Sag Harbor Antiquarian Book and Ephemera Fair is right around the corner, and interior designer Meg Barrett has her hands full decorating rooms at the Bibliophile Bed & Breakfast for wealthy rare book collector Franklin Hollingsworth. Rumor has it Hollingsworth is in possession of an unpublished manuscript written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. When the Fitzgerald manuscript's authenticator is found dead at the bottom of a cliff, Meg suspects a killer is on the loose. Rare books start disappearing from the B & B and Meg sees a connection between the stolen books and the deceased authenticator. With the fair looming, she finds herself caught up in catching a killer and thief before another victim is booked for death. INCLUDES RECIPES AND DECORATING TIPS

Justine Moppett is 34, pregnant, and fleeing an abusive relationship in New York to dig up an even more traumatic childhood in Austin. Waiting for her there is a cast of more than a dozen misfits — a hemophobic aspiring serial killer, a deranged soprano opera singer, a debt-addicted entrepreneur-cum-madam, a matchmaking hermaphrodite — each hurtling toward their own calamities, and, ultimately, toward each other. A Texan Gabriel García Márquez who writes tragicomic twists reminiscent of John Kennedy Toole, Bill Cotter produces some of the most visceral, absurd, and downright hilarious sentences to be found in fiction today. The Parallel Apartments is a bold leap forward for a writer whose protean talents, whose sheer exuberance for language and what a novel can do, marks him as one of the most exciting stylists in America.

This extraordinary collection, a trove of enchanting designs, appealing colors, and forgotten motifs that stir the imagination, features an unprecedented assortment of ephemera, or paper collectibles, related to food. It includes images of postcards, match covers, menus, labels, posters, brochures, valentines, packaging, advertisements, and other materials from nineteenth- and twentieth-century America. Internationally acclaimed food historian William Woys Weaver takes us on a lively tour through this dazzling collection in which each piece tells a new story about food and the past. Packed with fascinating history, the volume is the first serious attempt to organize culinary ephemera into categories, making it useful for food lovers, collectors, designers, and curators alike. Much more than a catalog, Culinary Ephemera follows this paper trail to broader themes in American social history such as diet and health, alcoholic beverages, and Americans abroad. It is a collection that, as Weaver notes, will "transport us into the vicarious worlds of dinners past, brushing elbows with the reality of another time, another place, another human condition."