A biologist studying patterns of sexual selection, Lucy Stone knows a lot about mating–particularly that in the animal kingdom, males will go to any length to attract females. Why, then, are their human counterparts so hopeless in courtship? This is the question that Lucy and her best friend, Martha McKenna, struggle to answer. Consider Adam, Lucy’s boyfriend of two years, who demonstrates on an ostensibly romantic camping trip that he can’t build a fire, split wood, or jump-start a car. Worse still, he’s scared to go into the woods after dark. Or take Jesse, Martha’s younger brother, an opera aficionado and neurotic extraordinaire who can’t summon the courage to make the first move on the woman he’s crazy about. And what about the extensive list of men with whom Martha has endured the torments of the first date. But then there’s Cooper Tuckington, Lucy’s best friend from college. Born and bred on his family’s West Virginia dairy farm, Cooper fits anyone’s description of a man’s man, and yet he is chivalrous and charming. During his annual visit to New York City, he rewires Lucy’s lamps, builds her shelves, and holds forth on subjects from great painters to the great outdoors, all the while pulling out chairs and opening doors for the ladies. Surely, think Martha and Lucy, the men in their lives would benefit from the tutelage of someone who knows how to treat a woman. Thus, Man Camp is born. With a little feminine persuasion, Lucy and Martha convince Adam, Jesse, and a handful of their other male acquaintances to visit Cooper’s farm, where they will learn everything a guy should know, from cars to carpentry to chivalry–and that’s just the C’s. But life on the farm isn’t exactly as it seems–and the boys soon prove themselves in ways the women would never have imagined. In the process, Lucy and Martha themselves learn a good bit about life and love. The perfect can’t-put-it-down novel for all of us who’ve needed to bring out the inner man in the men we love, Man Camp is a brilliant, witty, and insightful romp through the wilds of dating and mating.

Though the wonders of ancient Roman culture continue to attract interest across the disciplines, it is difficult to find a lively, accessible collection of the full range of the era's literature in English. The Oxford Anthology of Roman Literature provides a general introduction to the literature of the Roman empire at its zenith, between the second century BC and the second century AD. Two features of this extraordinarily fertile period in literary achievement as evidenced by this anthology are immediately and repeatedly clear: how similar the Romans' view of the world was to our own and, perhaps even more obviously, how different it was. Most of the authors included in the anthology wrote in Latin, but as the anthology moves forward in time, relevant Greek texts that reflect the cultural diversity of Roman literary life are also included, something no other such anthology has done in the past. Roman literature was wonderfully creative and diverse, and the texts in this volume were chosen from a broad range of genres: drama, epic, philosophy, satire, lyric poetry, love poetry. By its very nature an anthology can abbreviate and thus obscure the most attractive features of even a masterpiece, so the two editors have not only selected texts that capture the essence of the respective authors, but also have included accompanying introductions and afterwords that will guide the reader in pursuing further reading. The presentations of the selections are enlivened with illustrations that locate the works within the contexts of the world in which they were written and enjoyed. The student and general reader will come away from this learned yet entertaining anthology with a fuller appreciation of the place occupied by literature in the Roman world.

"Observations of an Illinois Boy in Battle, Camp and Prisons—1861 to 1865" by Henry Harrison Eby Henry Eby's story of service with the 7th Illinois Cavalry in the American Civil War is like many soldier stories. Told in his own way, it is compelling for its simplicity, despite the horrors and deprivations he endured. He fought at Stones River, Chickamauga, and elsewhere. On September 20, 1863, Eby was captured. Barely surviving, he and a friend escaped, only to be captured again. Eventually paroled, he returned to his unit and served out the rest of his enlistment.

No mortal had ever seen the Martians, but they had heard their whisperings - without knowing the terrible secret they kept hidden. A fantastically futuristic science fiction tale written by one of the masterminds of the genre, Frank Long!