It looked to be a love story for the ages. They first met as she was handing over his order of a Big O sandwich, six-piece nuggets, small fries, and a medium chocolate shake. He had exact change. They spent a magical night together with a gang of young rebels, traipsing through town on a mission to correct grammatical errors in street signs and graffiti ("Drive Slowly"). But just when it seemed things couldn't be better, tragedy struck. Anthony caught his beloved Diana making out at a party with another guy. And what's worse, he was a high school graduate from the neighboring town, hailing only by his last name: Turner. Now Anthony must devise a vengeful plan by which he can humiliate his humiliator and win back his girl.

M.T. Anderson, author of the darkly comic suburban vampire tale Thirsty, here turns his attention to the of-this-world horrors of high school romance and minimum-wage drudgery. The result is a hugely funny, fast-paced romp through teen angst. Passages describing the O'Dermott's experience (the fast-food joint where Turner works and where Anthony gets a job as part of his evil plot) are spill-your-soda hilarious—obviously the words of someone who has lived the nightmare. Anthony laments, "It was hard not to feel ugly. Crusty. Doped. My fingernails were black. My shirt was stiff. My hair hung flat. My skin was shellacked with ambient lard." Not to mention the fact that he works side-by-side with his nemesis, his two best friends have fallen in subverbal saccharine love with each other, and his only hope is teaming up with Shunt, the vegan, anarchist grill cook. As Anderson clearly understands and as Anthony notes (while mustering the courage to kiss his archenemy's girlfriend), "There is a certain ferocity you need, to be a teenager in America." Indeed. (Ages 13 and older) —Brangien Davis

This brilliantly ironic satire is set in a future world where television and computers are connected directly into people's brains when they are babies. The result is a chillingly recognizable consumer society where empty-headed kids are driven by fashion and shopping and the avid pursuit of silly entertainment—even on trips to Mars and the moon—and by constant customized murmurs in their brains of encouragement to buy, buy, buy.

Anderson gives us this world through the voice of a boy who, like everyone around him, is almost completely inarticulate, whose vocabulary, in a dead-on parody of the worst teenspeak, depends heavily on three words: "like," "thing," and the second most common English obscenity. He's even made this vapid kid a bit sympathetic, as a product of his society who dimly knows something is missing in his head. The details are bitterly funny—the idiotic but wildly popular sitcom called "Oh? Wow! Thing!", the girls who have to retire to the ladies room a couple of times an evening because hairstyles have changed, the hideous lesions on everyone that are not only accepted, but turned into a fashion statement. And the ultimate awfulness is that when we finally meet the boy's parents, they are just as inarticulate and empty-headed as he is, and their solution to their son's problem is to buy him an expensive car.

Although there is a danger that at first teens may see the idea of brain-computers as cool, ultimately they will recognize this as a fascinating novel that says something important about their world. (Ages 14 and older) —Patty Campbell

Never be caught without something interesting to read. The Great American Bathroom Book, Vol. III presents two-page summaries of all-time great books. These overviews capture the best of a book or idea . . . and let the reader enjoy it.

Includes four poetry collections: "Just give me a cool drink of water 'fore I diiie", "Oh pray my wings are gonna fit me well", "And still I rise", and "Shaker, why don't you sing?".

Natalie Angier knows all that scientists know - and sometimes more - about the power of symmetry in sexual relations, about the brutal courting habits of dolphins, about the grand deceit of orchids, about the impact of female and male preferences on evolution. She knows how scientists go about their work, and she describes their ways, their visions, and their arguments. Perhaps most poignantly, she understands the complexities and the sad necessity of death. "The beauty of the natural world lies in the details, and most of those details are not the stuff of calendar art," she points out. Few writers have ever covered so many facets of biology so evocatively in one book. The Beauty of the Beastly tells us how the genius of the biological universe resides in its details and proves why, according to Timothy Ferris, author of the acclaimed Coming of Age in the Milky Way, Angier is "one of the strongest and wittiest science writers in the world today."

Despite scientific evidence to the contrary, as far as the health care profession is concerned the standard operating design of the human body is male. So when a book comes along as beautifully written and endlessly informative as Natalie Angier's Woman: An Intimate Geography, it's a cause for major celebration. Written with whimsy and eloquence, her investigation into female physiology draws its inspiration not only from scientific and medical sources but also from mythology, history, art, and literature, layering biological factoids with her own personal encounters and arcane anecdotes from the history of science. Who knew, for example, that the clitoris—with 8,000 nerve fibers—packs double the pleasure of the penis; that the gene controlling cellular sensitivity to male androgens, ironically enough, resides on the X-chromosome; or that stress hormones like cortisol and corticosterone are the true precursors of friendship?

The mysteries of evolution are not a new subject for Angier, a Pulitzer Prize-winning biology writer for the New York Times whose previous books include The Beauty of the Beastly and Natural Obsessions. The strengths of Woman begin with Angier's witty and evocative prose style, but its real contribution is the way it expands the definition of female "geography" beyond womb, breasts, and estrogen, down as far as the bimolecular substructure of DNA and up as high as the transcendent infrastructure of the human brain. —Patrizia DiLucchio

Classic French literature in vintage edition.

The great French playwright Jean Anouilh (1910-87) wrote both "pink" bittersweet comedies and "black" tragic dramas. Jean Anouilh Five Plays—the finest English-language anthology of his works—crackles with both his sharp wit and his icy cynicism. In Antigone, his preeminent play and exemplar of his themes and style, he creates a disturbing world in which fate may be no more than a game of role-playing. Eurydice, The Ermine, The Rehearsal, Romeo and Jeannette are the other plays included in this edition.

This critical survey explores the perennial and essential question - art's relationship to everyday life - which links art genres since the 1960s, seen in the work of artists from Warhol to Beuys. It includes a timeline showing group styles and movements, key figures and important world events.

Calling all Dawson's Creek fans! Television Without Pity features irreverent entries about the shows, characters, actors, clichés, plot devices, memorable moments, and catch phrases that make watching TV such a guilty pleasure. From weekend-long Real World marathons to the People's Choice Awards, from favorite characters (Brenda Walsh, Seth Cohen) to the most unfunny recurring skits on Saturday Night Live, this is a celebration of television unlike any other. Written by the creators of televisionwithoutpity.com (hailed by Entertainment Weekly as "the industry standard" for obsessive TV fanatics), this snarktastic volume features 100 illustrations and an encyclopedic two-column design. It's great fun for nostalgic browsing and guaranteed to prompt more laughter than a whole season of Seinfeld.

If you don't get home until six or later and still need to get dinner on the table, this is the book for you. The Vegetarian 5-Ingredient Gourmet pares down ingredients to their simplest and most flavorful form. "Keeping things simple takes the frantic quality—and pressure—out of preparing a meal," says author Nava Atlas. "Simplifying helps you to slow down and enjoy the process of cooking."

Atlas devotes a whole chapter to tofu and soy products, including seitan and packaged products like soy "hot dogs" and "sausage." She also has a chapter on "Rudimentary Wraps," which includes recipes for Avocado and Ricotta Soft Tacos, Goat Cheese and Red Pepper Wraps, and the ever popular Black Bean Burrito (spice them with green chiles). Pasta is a quick and easy favorite. Keep jarred sauce on hand and you have the beginnings of Pasta with Triple Red Sauce or Pasta with Olive Sauce. Serve veggie burgers on whole-grain buns with a side of Creamy Coleslaw or Baked Barbecued Tofu and Potato Kebabs for an easy weeknight meal. Or try Asian Sesame-Soy Noodles paired with Broccoli and Tofu in Peanut Sauce.

Every recipe includes a nutritional breakdown including calories, fat, protein, carbohydrates, cholesterol, and sodium. Nearly every recipe has suggestions for what to pair the dish with and on what page to find it. This is an especially handy cookbook for time-crunched families. The food is easy, quick, healthy, and doesn't require great concentration to prepare. —Dana Van Nest

Vegetarian Express claims that each of its recipes can be prepared in 28 minutes or less. If preparation time sometimes stretches to 40 minutes on a few of the more complicated recipes, it hardly matters, for you end up with an extraordinarily delicious, low-fat meal in as much time as it takes for the local pizza place to deliver one of its greasy pies. This book was written with busy people in mind: folks who like to eat well but don't have the time to spend steaming, blanching, soaking, and simmering after a full day of work. Instead, Nava Atlas and Lillian Kayte encourage cooks to use prepared foods as often as possible: canned chickpeas, frozen spinach, and quick-cook rice add up to a blissful curried chickpea stew; frozen corn, canned olives and tomatoes, and tortillas combine to make a dynamite Mexican lasagna. The book is divided into sections on grains, pastas, sandwiches, and more, including recipes for side dishes to compliment each entree.

Accompanying each recipe is a checklist for ingredients; a breakdown of the calories, grams of fat, and protein contained in each serving; and instructions for when to begin each phase of preparation. With Vegetarian Express, even the most harried cook can prepare healthful, tasty meals in record time.