'Acampora is an original' Jay McInerney, author of Bright Lights, Big City An electrifying debut novel of two women's friendship, a haunting obsession and twisted ambition, set against the feverish backdrop of contemporary Hollywood. Abby Graven is a dreamer. She dreams her way through her small, lonely life - hiding back at her parents, working at the grocery store. At night, she collects tabloid clippings that taunt her with Elise - her best friend, now Hollywood's hot new starlet. When a school reunion throws Elise in her path, Abby seizes her chance. With feverish certainty, she boards a one-way flight to LA to become Elise's assistant and enters her gauzy realm of film sets and glamorous actors. But behind Elise's glossy magazine veneer, she is drowning in Hollywood's vicious social cycle. Ever the devoted friend, Abby conceals her own burning desire for greatness. For she is smarter than Elise. More talented. A true artist. And as she edges closer to her own ambitions, Abby can see only one way to make her dream come true. Propelled by seductive, unstoppable force, The Paper Wasp slashes through the dark side of Hollywood and the treacherous intimacies of female friendship, pursuing a heroine of blazing artistic vision and blinding drive.

With over 400 pages and 900 full-color illustrations, The Social Wasps of North America is the world's first complete illustrated field guide to all known species of social wasps from the high arctic of Greenland and Alaska to the tropical forests of Panama and Grenada. For beginners, experts, and everyone in-between, The Social Wasps of North America provides new insights about some of the world’s least popular beneficial insects, plus tips and tricks to avoid painful stings. This book includes detailed information about the ecology, evolution, taxonomy, anatomy, nest architecture, and conservation of social wasp species. To purchase this book in softcover format, visit our website at OwlflyLLC.com/publications.

The diversity of social behaviour among birds and primates is surpassed only by members of the Hymenopteran insects (bees, ants, and wasps). The paper-wasps are a large and varied group, and have been studied extensively by a wide range of biologists interested in the evolution of sociality. This book is unusual in combining synthetic reviews and new, unpublished data with original ideas.

The ultimate visual journey into the beautiful and complex world of wasps Wasps are far more diverse than the familiar yellowjackets and hornets that harass picnickers and build nests under the eaves of our homes. These amazing, mostly solitary creatures thrive in nearly every habitat on Earth, and their influence on our lives is overwhelmingly beneficial. Wasps are agents of pest control in agriculture and gardens. They are subjects of study in medicine, engineering, and other important fields. Wasps pollinate flowers, engage in symbiotic relationships with other organisms, and create architectural masterpieces in the form of their nests. This richly illustrated book introduces you to some of the most spectacular members of the wasp realm, colorful in both appearance and lifestyle. From minute fairyflies to gargantuan tarantula hawks, wasps exploit almost every niche on the planet. So successful are they at survival that other organisms emulate their appearance and behavior. The sting is the least reason to respect wasps and, as you will see, no reason to loathe them, either. Written by a leading authority on these remarkable insects, Wasps reveals a world of staggering variety and endless fascination. Packed with more than 150 incredible color photos Includes a wealth of eye-popping infographics Provides comprehensive treatments of most wasp families Describes wasp species from all corners of the world Covers wasp evolution, ecology, physiology, diversity, and behavior Highlights the positive relationships wasps share with humans and the environment

Grade level: 1, 2, 3, p, e.

Celebrated by the Boston Globe as “a brilliant anthropologist of the suburbs,” the deliciously weird and darkly offbeat Lauren Acampora returns to the secret lives of the polished Connecticut haven that got us all hooked on NPR Best Book of the Year The Wonder Garden, and jolts us with the sparks that fly when those lives collide “Acampora’s prose has a seductive, pearlescent allure.”—TIME Magazine Formerly a model and photographer trying to make it in New York, Louisa Rader is back in her affluent hometown of Nearwater, Connecticut, where she’s married to a successful older architect, raising a preteen daughter, and trying to vitalize the provincial local art center. As the years pass, she’s grown restless in her safe and comfortable routine, haunted by the flash of the life she used to live. When intense and intriguing young artist-environmentalist Gabriel arrives in town with his aristocratic family, his impact on the Raders has hothouse effects. As Gabriel pushes to realize his artistic vision for the world, he pulls both Louisa and her daughter Sylvie under his spell, with consequences that disrupt the Raders’ world forever. A strange, sexy, and sinister novel of art and obsession, in The Hundred Waters Acampora gives us an incisive, page-turning story of ambition, despair, desire, and the pursuit of fulfillment and freedom at all costs.

Set in an old New England mill town in 1979, "The Wasp Eater" is the story of a nine-year-old boy's dream of reuniting his estranged parents, and is a haunting tale of characters caught in the crossfire of their desires and fears.