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How did the female body drive 200 million years of human evolution? Why do women live longer than men? Why are women more likely to get Alzheimer’s? Why do girls score better at every academic subject than boys until puberty, when suddenly their scores plummet? Is sexism useful for evolution? And why, seriously why, do women have to sweat through our sheets every night when we hit menopause? These questions are producing some truly exciting science --- and in EVE, with boundless curiosity and sharp wit, Cat Bohannon covers the past 200 million years to explain the specific science behind the development of the female sex. This book is not only a sweeping revision of human history, it’s an urgent and necessary corrective for a world that has focused primarily on the male body for far too long.

In HITCHCOCK’S BLONDES, Laurence Leamer offers an intimate journey into the lives of eight legendary actresses whose stories helped chart the course of Alfred Hitchcock’s career --- from his early days in the British film industry, to his triumphant American debut, to his Hollywood heyday and beyond. Through the stories of June Howard-Tripp, Madeleine Carroll, Ingrid Bergman, Grace Kelly, Janet Leigh, Kim Novak, Eva Marie Saint and Tippi Hedren --- who starred in 14 of Hitchcock’s most notable films and who bore the brunt of his fondness and sometimes fixation --- we can finally start to see the enigmatic man himself. After all, “his” blondes (as he thought of them) knew the truths of his art, his obsessions and desires, as well as anyone.

Hollywood in the 1950s was a period when the film industry both set conventions and broke norms and traditions --- from Cinerama, CinemaScope and VistaVision to the epic film and lavish musical. It was a decade that saw the rise of the antihero; the smoldering, the hidden and the unspoken; teenagers gone wild in the streets; the sacred and the profane; the revolution of the Method; the socially conscious; the implosion of the studios; the end of the production code; and the invasion of the ultimate body snatcher: the “small screen” television. Here is Eisenhower’s America, seemingly complacent and conformity-ridden. And here is its darkening, resonant landscape, beset by conflict, discontent and anxiety --- an America on the verge of cultural, political and sexual revolt, busting up and breaking out.

Israel, October 1973. As the Yom Kippur War flares into life, a state-of-the-art Soviet MiG fighter plane plummets to an unexpected landing. NASA Flight Controller and former US test pilot Kaz Zemeckis watches from the ground --- unaware that its arrival will pull him into a high-stakes game of spies, lies and secrets that hold the key to Cold War air and space supremacy. For within that plane is a Soviet pilot pleading to defect, offering a prize beyond value: the workings of the Soviets' mythical "Foxbat" MiG-25, the fastest, highest-flying fighter plane in the world. But trusting him is risky, and Kaz must tread a careful line. As Kaz accompanies the defector into the United States, to the military’s most secret test site, he must hope that --- with skill and cunning --- the game plays out his way.

Ford and Neuland are paranormal mercenaries --- one living, one undead; one of them kills the undead, the other kills the living. When a job goes bad in New York, they head west to wait for the heat to cool down. There, a young woman named Tilda Rosenbloom hires them on behalf of wealthy landowner Shepherd Mansfield to track and kill a demon haunting a mansion in remote northern California. As Ford and Neuland investigate the creature, they uncover a legacy of blood, sacrifice and slavery in the house. Forced to confront a powerful creature unlike anything they’ve faced before, they come to learn that the most frightening monster might not be the one they're hunting.

Bournville is a quiet village in the heart of England famous for its chocolate. For 11-year-old Mary, it is the center of her world. During the next three-quarters of a century, Mary will have children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She will live through the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II and the 1966 World Cup final (the last time England won), royal weddings and royal funerals, Brexit and COVID-19. Parts of the chocolate factory will be transformed into a theme park, and Bournville itself will gradually disappear into the sprawl of the growing city of Birmingham. As we travel through 75 years of social change, one pressing question starts to emerge: Will these changing times bring Mary's family --- and their country --- closer together, or leave them more adrift and divided than ever before?

It’s Halloween in Vermont, winter is coming, and five humans, two dogs and a cat are a crowd in Mercy Carr’s small cabin. She needs more room --- and she knows just the place: Grackle Tree Farm, with 30 acres of woods and wetlands and a Victorian manor to die for. They say it’s haunted by the ghosts of missing children and lost poets and a murderer or two, but Mercy loves it anyway. Even when Elvis finds a dead body in the library. A coded letter found on the victim points to a hidden treasure that may be worth a fortune (if it’s real). She and Captain Thrasher conduct a search of the old place --- and end up at the wrong end of a Glock. A masked man shoots Thrasher, and she and Elvis must take him down before he murders them all.

Ashley Smith, an American art student in London for her junior year, was planning on spending Christmas alone. But a last-minute invitation from fellow student Emma Chapman brings her to Starvewood Hall, the country residence of the Chapman family. Ashley is mesmerized by the cozy, firelit house, the large family, and the charming village of Clevemoor, but also by Adam Chapman, Emma’s aloof and handsome brother. But Adam is being investigated by the local police over the recent brutal slaying of a girl from the village, and there is a mysterious stranger who haunts the woodland path between Starvewood Hall and the local pub. Ashley begins to wonder what kind of story she is actually inhabiting. Over 30 years later, the events of that horrific week are revisited, along with a diary from that time.

Since stumbling from their world into the Up and Under, Avery and Zib have walked the improbable road across forests, seas and skies, finding friends in the unlikeliest of places and enemies great in number, as they make their way toward the Impossible City in the hope of finding their way home. But the final part of their journey is filled with danger and demise. Not everyone will make it through unscathed. Not everyone will make it through alive.

In addition to her celebrated career as a novelist, Hilary Mantel contributed for years to newspapers and journals, unspooling stories from her own life and illuminating the world as she found it. A MEMOIR OF MY FORMER SELF collects the finest of this writing over four decades. Her subjects are wide-ranging, sharply observed and beautifully rendered. She discusses nationalism and her own sense of belonging; our dream life popping into our conscious life; the many themes that feed into her novels --- revolutionary France, psychics, Tudor England; and other novelists, from Jane Austen to V.S. Naipaul. She writes fiercely and heartbreakingly about the battles with her health that she endured as a young woman, and the stifling years she found herself living in Saudi Arabia.

Madeline Martin is the young owner of a thriving business, The Next Chapter Bookshop. When Harley Granger, a failed novelist turned true crime podcaster, drifts into her shop in the days before Christmas, he seems intent on digging up events that Madeline would much rather forget. She’s the only surviving victim of Evan Handy, the man who was convicted of murdering her best friend, Steph, and is suspected in the disappearance of two sisters, also good friends of Madeline’s. Since Evan Handy went to jail, three other young women have gone missing, most recently a young college dropout named Lolly. Five young women missing in the same area in a decade. Are they connected? Was Evan Handy innocent after all? Or was there someone else there that night? Someone who is still satisfying his dark appetites?

Ancient Greeks, modern seers, Freud, Jung, neurologists, poets, artists, shamans. Humanity has never ceased trying to decipher one of the strangest unexplained phenomena we all experience: dreaming. Now, in her new book, Roz Chast illustrates her own dream world, a place that is sometimes creepy but always hilarious, accompanied by an illustrated tour through “Dream-Theory Land” guided by insights from poets, philosophers and psychoanalysts alike. Illuminating, surprising, funny and often profound, I MUST BE DREAMING explores Chast's newest subject of fascination --- and promises to make it yours, too.

The Christmas season has arrived in Lower Lockwood, and the Fairway Players are busy rehearsing their festive holiday production of “Jack and the Beanstalk” to raise money for a new church roof. But despite the season, goodwill is distinctly lacking among the amateur theater enthusiasts with petty rivalries, a possibly asbestos-filled beanstalk, and some perennially absent players behind the scenes. Of course, there’s also the matter of the dead body onstage. Who possibly could have had the victim on their naughty list? Join lawyers Femi and Charlotte as they investigate Christmas letters, examine emails and pore over police transcripts to identify both the victim and killer before the curtain closes on their holiday production --- for good.

In THE COMFORT OF CROWS, Margaret Renkl presents a literary devotional: 52 chapters that follow the creatures and plants in her backyard over the course of a year. As we move through the seasons --- from a crow spied on New Year’s Day, its resourcefulness and sense of community setting a theme for the year, to the lingering bluebirds of December, revisiting the nest box they used in spring --- what develops is a portrait of joy and grief: joy in the ongoing pleasures of the natural world, and grief over winters that end too soon and songbirds that grow fewer and fewer. Along the way, we also glimpse the changing rhythms of a human life.

After 17 years of sharing recipes in my cookbooks, on my website and on my cooking show, I still absolutely love cooking! That said, while I enjoy making a slow-cooked meat sauce or long-braised pork roast, life is just too busy these days to devote that much time to getting dinner on the table day after day. Heck, even if I have the time to whip up a complicated recipe, for some reason I just don’t seem to have the patience. If you find yourself in the same dinner boat, here’s a collection of flavorful and fast recipes to breathe speedy new scrumptiousness into your cooking. In THE PIONEER WOMAN COOKS — DINNER'S READY!, you’ll find lots of new dishes to fit your schedule, whether you’re in a hurry to get supper made or simply want to get out of the kitchen quicker to spend time doing other things you enjoy.

Secrecy came naturally to John le Carré, and there were some secrets that he fought fiercely to keep. Adam Sisman's definitive biography, published in 2015, provided a revealing portrait of this fascinating man. Yet some aspects of his subject remained hidden. Nowhere was this more so than in his private life. Apparently content in his marriage, the novelist conducted a string of love affairs over five decades. To these relationships, he brought much of the tradecraft that he had learned as a spy. In trying to manage his biography, the novelist engaged in a succession of skirmishes with his biographer. While he could control what Sisman wrote about him in his lifetime, he accepted that the truth would eventually become known. Following his death in 2020, what had been withheld can now be revealed.

In June 2021, the whole world was listening as Britney Spears spoke in open court. The impact of sharing her voice --- her truth --- was undeniable, and it changed the course of her life and the lives of countless others. THE WOMAN IN ME reveals for the first time her incredible journey --- and the strength at the core of one of the greatest performers in pop music history. Written with remarkable candor and humor, Spears’ groundbreaking book illuminates the enduring power of music and love --- and the importance of a woman telling her own story, on her own terms, at last.

Rowan is stuck. Her dream of becoming a Hollywood screenwriter is stalled, and so she and her novelist fiancé, Seth, retreat to an isolated cabin in the Adirondacks to hopefully get out of their creative ruts. There, Rowan finds herself drawn into a mysterious and unsettling story --- that of socialite-turned-feminist-crusader Eddie Callaway, who vanished in these same woods the summer of 1975 and was never heard from again. A handbook found in the abandoned ruins of the Callaway camp gives Rowan glimpses into who Eddie was, and then a fateful discovery offers clues about what might have happened to her. Soon, Rowan finds herself with a story potentially more shocking than Eddie’s notes about sun salutations and pineapple upside-down cake would indicate.

A JOURNEY TO ST. THOMAS is a modern reimagining of Geoffrey Chaucer’s THE CANTERBURY TALES. Hoping for an adventure (at a discounted price), two dozen strangers set sail for balmy St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands. As different from one another as strangers can be, they agree to pass the time by telling stories. As the passengers share their stories, they begin to learn some astonishing things about their neighbors. Then, partway through the voyage, they are notified about a virus that has spread across the United States and their destination. The ship is quarantined, and they are destined to loll on the waves of the open sea until a port welcomes them. Stuck together in the confines of the ship, the group continues to regale each other with ingenious tales.

The year is 1901. England’s beloved queen has died, and her aging son has finally taken the throne. In the eastern city of Norwich, bright and inquisitive young Edith Holler spends her days among the boisterous denizens of the Holler Theatre, warned by her domineering father that the playhouse will literally tumble down if she should ever leave its confines. She decides to write a play of her own: a stage adaptation of the legend of Mawther Meg, a monstrous figure said to have used the blood of countless children to make the local delicacy known as Beetle Spread. But when her father suddenly announces his engagement to a peculiar, imposing woman --- heir to the actual Beetle Spread fortune --- Edith scrambles to protect her father, the theatre and her play from the newcomer’s sinister designs.

Grayson Hale, the most infamous murderer in Scotland, is better known by a different name: the Devil’s Advocate. The 25-year-old American grad student rose to instant notoriety when he confessed to the slaughter of his classmate, Liam Stewart, claiming the Devil made him do it. When Hale is found hanged in his prison cell, officers uncover a handwritten manuscript that promises to answer the question that’s haunted the nation for years: Was Hale a lunatic, or had he been telling the truth all along?

Maud Blyth has always longed for adventure. She expected plenty of it when she volunteered to serve as an old lady’s companion on an ocean liner, in order to help her beloved older brother unravel a magical conspiracy that began generations ago. What she didn’t expect was for the old lady in question to turn up dead on the first day of the voyage. Now she has to deal with a dead body, a disrespectful parrot, and the lovely, dangerously outrageous Violet Debenham, who’s also returning home to England. Violet is everything that Maud has been trained to distrust yet can’t help but desire: a magician, an actress and a magnet for scandal.

Iris moves to New York to restart her life. While at a famous autumn street fair in Little Italy, a little family-run gelateria catches her eye. Could it be the same shop that’s in an old photo of her mother’s? Iris returns the next day and meets the handsome Gio, who tells her that the shop is in danger of closing. His uncle, the sole keeper of their family’s gelato recipe, is recovering from a stroke and can no longer remember it. When Iris samples the last remaining batch, she realizes that their gelato and her gelato are one and the same. She offers her services as a chef to help them re-create the flavor and finds herself falling for Gio and his family. But when Gio’s uncle finally wakes up, all of the secrets Iris has been keeping threaten to ruin the new life --- and new love --- she’s been building all winter long.

The old world is buried. A new one has been forged atop the shifting dunes, a land of howling wind and infernal sand. In this barren home, siblings Conner, Rob, Palmer and Violet daily carve out a future. They live in the shadow of their father and oldest sister, Vic, two of the greatest sand divers ever to comb the desert’s depths. But these branches of their family tree are long gone, leaving the younger siblings scratching in the dust, hopeful for a better life. On the other side of No Man’s Land, Anya was born beside the abundant mines knowing her prospects would be to marry, have a family and work in ore. But when an atomic bomb delivered by a stranger destroys most of her town, she follows her father to a strange land of dunes to bring vengeance to their enemies.

At 19, she was an Instagram celebrity. Now, at 35, she works behind the cosmetic counter at the “black and white store,” peddling anti-aging products to women seeking physical and spiritual transformation. She, too, is seeking rebirth. She’s about to undergo the high-risk, elective surgery Aesthetica™, a procedure that will reverse all her past plastic surgery procedures, hopefully returning her to a truer self. Provided she survives the knife. But on the eve of the surgery, her traumatic past resurfaces when she is asked to participate in the public takedown of her former manager/boyfriend, who has rebranded himself as a paragon of “woke” masculinity in the post-#MeToo world. With the hours ticking down to her surgery, she must confront the ugly truth about her experiences on and off the Instagram grid.