A wildly hilarious and irreverent memoir of a globe-trotting life lived meal-to-meal by one of our most influential and respected food critics As the son of a diplomat growing up in places like Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan, Adam Platt didn’t have the chance to become a picky eater. Living, traveling, and eating in some of the most far-flung locations around the world, he developed an eclectic palate and a nuanced understanding of cultures and cuisines that led to some revelations which would prove important in his future career as a food critic. In Tokyo, for instance—“a kind of paradise for nose-to-tail cooking”—he learned that “if you’re interested in telling a story, a hair-raisingly bad meal is much better than a good one." From dim sum in Hong Kong to giant platters of Peking duck in Beijing, fresh-baked croissants in Paris and pierogi on the snowy streets of Moscow, Platt takes us around the world, re-tracing the steps of a unique, and lifelong, culinary education. Providing a glimpse into a life that has intertwined food and travel in exciting and unexpected ways, The Book of Eating is a delightful and sumptuous trip that is also the culinary coming-of-age of a voracious eater and his eventual ascension to become, as he puts it, “a professional glutton.”

Starting middle school brings all the usual challenges — until the unthinkable happens, and Fern and her family must find a way to heal. Twelve-year-old Fern feels invisible. It seems as though everyone in her family has better things to do than pay attention to her: Mom (when she’s not meditating) helps Dad run the family restaurant; Sarah is taking a gap year after high school; and Holden pretends that Mom and Dad and everyone else doesn’t know he’s gay, even as he fends off bullies at school. Then there’s Charlie: three years old, a “surprise” baby, the center of everyone’s world. He’s devoted to Fern, but he’s annoying, too, always getting his way, always dirty, always commanding attention. If it wasn’t for Ran, Fern’s calm and positive best friend, there’d be nowhere to turn. Ran’s mantra, “All will be well,” is soothing in a way that nothing else seems to be. And when Ran says it, Fern can almost believe it’s true. But then tragedy strikes- and Fern feels not only more alone than ever, but also responsible for the accident that has wrenched her family apart. All will not be well. Or at least all will never be the same.

From award-winning author Barbara O'Connor comes a middle-grade novel about a girl who, with the help of the dog of her dreams, discovers the true meaning of family.

JO LAROUCHE HAS lived her 13 years in the California desert with her Aunt Lily, ever since she was dropped on Lily’s doorstep with this note: This is Jo. Please take care of her. But beware. This is a dangerous baby. At Lily’s annual Christmas costume party, a variety of strange events take place that lead Jo and Lily out of California forever—and into the mysterious, strange, fantastical world of Eldritch City. There, Jo learns the scandalous truth about who she is, and she and Lily join the Order of Odd-Fish, a collection of knights who research useless information. Glamorous cockroach butlers, pointless quests, obsolete weapons, and bizarre festivals fill their days, but two villains are controlling their fate. Jo is inching closer and closer to the day when her destiny is fulfilled, and no one in Eldritch City will ever be the same.

The ten stories in The View from Stalin’s Head unfold in the post–Cold War Prague of the 1990s—a magnet not only for artists and writers but also for American tourists and college grad deadbeats, a city with a glorious yet sometimes shameful history, its citizens both resentful of and nostalgic for their Communist past. Against this backdrop, Aaron Hamburger conjures an arresting array of characters: a self-appointed rabbi who runs a synagogue for non-Jews; an artist, once branded as a criminal by the Communist regime, who hires a teenage boy to boss him around; a fiery would-be socialist trying to rouse the oppressed masses while feeling the tug of her comfortable Stateside upbringing. European and American, Jewish and gentile, straight and gay, the people in these stories are forced to confront themselves when the ethnic, religious, political, and sexual labels they used to rely on prove surprisingly less stable than they’d imagined. As Christopher Isherwood did in his Berlin Stories, Aaron Hamburger offers a humane and subtly etched portrait of a time and place, of people wrestling with questions of love, faith, and identity. The View from Stalin’s Head is a remarkable debut, and the beginning of a remarkable career.

When Austin meets Jenny, sparks fly. A fleeting essence haunts his dreams, invades his day-time fantasies. Bewitched, he pursues her. Equally attracted to the handsome, well-bred engineer, Jenny and Austin tumble amorously into lust/love. They elope! On honeymoon, Austin learns of his bride's mixed racial ancestry. For decades, her tribe and his extended family have been in legal warfare over disputed land claims, an impediment to his rise in the family business. His bride easily "passes" as Anglo. He will not give up the girl he loves. And she will never know he didn't know before he put a ring on her finger, setting the tone for their marriage. Dark clouds hang over Austin: his mother's secret, a vindictive woman from his past; Vietnam. In the first year, a treasured son is born. Climbing the corporate ladder moves the family far from legal disputes. A rising star, he travels extensively. Austin's fidelity in doubt, rootless and wounded, Jenny returns to Indian Lake in the throes of the Native American Movement, stroking a native spirit she has suppressed. Humbled and desperately lonely, Austin will pay the price to keep her in his bed. Trust restored, they move into her dream home, where Jenny comes into her own, birthing "Creations" a shop featuring Native American crafts. She and her son take part in Seneca traditions on reservations. The long-lost journal of an early settler come into Jenny's possession. Emersed in troubles of her own, she sets the journal aside, until the apparition appears during visits to Indian Lake. His authority severely challenged, Austin resists growing pains of the marriage, leading to divisive power struggles. The ways this loving couple navigates expectations/disappointments inevitable in a long union will confound, inspire, capture readers, turning pages to the end. BOOK TWO of the series We WALK in FOOTPRINTS tells the intimate love story of Austin and Jenny progeny of two opposing interests.