A better title for this book might be The Indispensable Writings of Nietzsche. Indeed, the six selections contained in Walter Kaufmann's volume are not only critical elements of Nietzsche's oeuvre, they are must-reads for any aspiring student of philosophy. Those coming to Nietzsche for the first time will be pleased to find three of his best-known works—The Birth of Tragedy, Beyond Good and Evil, and On the Genealogy of Morals—as well as a collection of 75 aphorisms drawn from Nietzsche's celebrated aphoristic work. In addition, there are two lesser known, but important, pieces in The Case of Wagner and Ecce Homo. Kaufmann's lucid and accurate translations have been the gold standard of Nietzsche scholarship since the 1950s, and this volume does not disappoint.

Anyone who has slogged their way through the swamps of German philosophical writing—-in Kant or Hegel or Heidegger—will find Nietzsche a refreshing and exhilarating change. The selections are well chosen, and a cover-to-cover read will aptly depict Nietzsche's philosophy. In this volume the reader will find many of Nietzsche's polemical (and frequently misunderstood) ratiocinations on Christianity, Socrates, Germany, and art. Here, too, are his seminal and unforgettable critiques of Western morality ("That lambs dislike great birds of prey does not seem strange: only it gives no ground for reproaching these birds of prey for bearing off little lambs"). For philosophical fireworks, Nietzsche can hardly be matched. His brazen defiance of intellectualism's conventions still rings in contemporary thought because he practiced philosophy with a hammer. —Eric de Place

The Three Incestuous Sisters is an evocative, illustrated book by the best-selling author of The Time Traveler's Wife, Audrey Niffenegger. Reminiscent of the gothic style of Edward Gorey, Niffenegger's visually stunning narrative affirms her genius as a storyteller. These rich pages present the tale of three very different sisters: one who is beautiful, one who is smart, and one who is talented. A melodrama of sibling rivalry unfurls as one sister is driven mad with jealousy due to the passionate love affair of another. Escalating to a dizzying climax, the romance of the two lovers ends in sabotage, shame, and despair. Haunting illustrations and lyrical prose depict a timeless tale of love, revenge, and ultimately, transcendence.

The Three Incestuous Sisters is a unique and lavish tour de force, which showcases Audrey Niffenegger's incredible talent as an artist and a writer.

A dazzling novel in the most untraditional fashion, this is the remarkable story of Henry DeTamble, a dashing, adventuresome librarian who travels involuntarily through time, and Clare Abshire, an artist whose life takes a natural sequential course. Henry and Clare's passionate love affair endures across a sea of time and captures the two lovers in an impossibly romantic trap, and it is Audrey Niffenegger's cinematic storytelling that makes the novel's unconventional chronology so vibrantly triumphant.

An enchanting debut and a spellbinding tale of fate and belief in the bonds of love, The Time Traveler's Wife is destined to captivate readers for years to come.

When Roz Rosenzweig meets Edwin Anderson fumbling for keys on the stoop of a Manhattan walk-up, the last thing on her mind is falling for a polite Nebraskan–yet fall for him she does. So begins Thisbe Nissen’s breathtaking debut novel, a decidedly urban fairy tale that follows Roz and Edwin as they move from improbable courtship to marriage to the birth of daughter Miranda–the locus of all Roz’s attention, anxiety, and often smothering affection.
As Miranda comes of age and begins to chafe against the intensity of her mother’s neurotic love, Roz must do her best to let those she cherishes move into the world without her. On crowded subways, in strange bedrooms, at Bar Mitzvahs, in brownstone basements and high school gymnasiums, Nissen’s unforgettable characters make their hilarious and wrenching way–and prove, indeed, that good things thrive in New York City.

Never before in the history of the National Book Award has an author been nominated two years in a row. Han Nolan was nominated in 1996 for Send Me Down a Miracle, and in 1997 Dancing on the Edge—a transcendent novel about a young woman trying to find the truth amidst the lies told by her family—won the National Book Award for young people's literature. Miracle was saved at birth from the belly of a dying woman—that sort of entry into the world is hard to live up to. Miracle has been struggling her whole life to become a prodigy like her writer father or to become gifted in the psychic arts like her grandmother. But when her father goes missing and her grandmother claims that he melted away, Miracle devotes all of her energies to bringing him back. Her efforts to reclaim her father are so sincere that she tries to melt herself in the fire made from a circle of candles. Never sparing humor, Han Nolan lets us meet this amazing young woman who wants so much to believe.

Jeff Noon's previous novels, Vurt and Pollen, have attracted a cult following with their psychedelic science fiction creation of the realm of "Vurt"—a region defined by illusion, dream and drug-induced fantasy. Noon has now decided to link up with an imaginative precursor by introducing Lewis Carroll's Alice as the protagonist in a new adventure that draws on Carroll's through-the-looking-glass inversions of reality, and adds a Jeff Noon menace and edginess absent from Carroll's Wonderland. Alice finds herself in 1998 Manchester when she enters an old grandfather clock, and soon becomes the prime suspect in the puzzling "Jigsaw Murders." Noon emulates Carroll's crazy wordplay throughout, and even adds his own illustrations inspired by those of John Tenniel, the famous interpreter of Alice.

After years of playing in two-bit bands, Elliot gets his big chance - he meets a singer, a DJ and a drummer who seem to have everything. But just as their first dance record is climbing the charts, one of the band disappears.

Set both in a real and imaginary Manchester, Jeff Noon's story concerns a revolutionary lottery game that is engulfing the city in a tide of gambling fever. As a group of mathematics students look at the mind-numbing probabilities involved, they soon find more sinister realities. The Company has developed the nymphomation, and has the power to devour the city's dreams

From the breakdown zones of the mediasphere and the margins of dance culture comes a selection of 50 stories. These stories range from urban fairytales, instructions for lost machines, true confessions, product recalls, adverts for mad gadgets and dub cut prose remixes.

If you like challenging science fiction, then Jeff Noon is the author for you.

Pollen is the sequel to Vurt (winner of the 1994 Arthur C. Clarke award), and both are concerned with a world in which dreams, drug-induced hallucination, and reality become completely intermingled. In this volume, the dream world unleashes a pollen that threatens to cause people in the real world to sneeze to death.

But no review can do Noon's writing justice: it's a phantasmagoric combination of the more imaginative science fiction masters, such as Phillip K. Dick, genres such as cyberpunk and pulp fiction, and drug culture.

If you would like a more accessible approach to Jeff Noon's richly imagined world, I recommend Automated Alice, a modern recasting of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.

If you like challenging science fiction, then Jeff Noon is the author for you. Vurt, winner of the 1994 Arthur C. Clarke award, is a cyberpunk novel with a difference, a rollicking, dark, yet humorous examination of a future in which the boundaries between reality and virtual reality are as tenuous as the brush of a feather.

But no review can do Noon's writing justice: it's a phantasmagoric combination of the more imaginative science fiction masters, such as Phillip K. Dick, genres such as cyberpunk and pulp fiction, and drug culture.

If this tickles your fancy, you should definitely consider the sequel to Vurt, Pollen, or Noon's lighter and more accessible Automated Alice, a modern recasting of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.

Quite possibly every female over the age of 12 will find this huge book enlightening, pain saving, and perhaps even lifesaving. Think of it as a much more empowering and holistic Our Bodies, Ourselves. Northrup is a gynecologist who acknowledges the power of natural therapies and herbs, but also maintains that allopathic treatments, including surgery, are sometimes best. In Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom, she covers the treatment of many physical concerns—among them PMS, menstrual cramps, breast cancer, fibroids, endometriosis, infertility, depression, childbirth, abortion, cystitis, and menopause—explaining how many of these physical problems have roots in emotional upsets. For example, a woman who is unhappy with her marriage may be infertile because deep down, she knows that her husband is not the right man to have children with; a teenager who has cramps may be having problems accepting society's expectations of her as a woman.

Some readers may be put off at first by Northrup's obviously unconventional ways of thinking. Her medical approach is decidedly feminist, blaming our "addictive" and patriarchal society for many of the health problems plaguing women. She clearly illustrates her ideas, however, by drawing upon two decades of experience from her medical practice and citing dozens of her patients' remarkable personal stories. Northrup also delineates the best way to go about tuning in to one's body and mind in order to start the healing process, a self-induced therapy of sorts. She also includes in the book a copy of the eye-opening health inventory she gives her clients. It includes unusual questions such as "Are you bored with your life?" and "Do you have enough friends or neighbors?"

This book will be of special benefit to women who are pregnant or entering menopause. Northrup is an unequivocal believer in natural births and her dialogue on the birthing process will remove the fears of even the most petrified mother-to-be. She criticizes episiotomies (she should know; she's given birth without one) and supports midwifery. She also warns against the harmfulness of cesarean births and includes illustrations of acupressure points that help turn around a breech baby.

For women in perimenopause or menopause, Northrup will help turn this life phase into one of peace and personal growth instead of one of suffering. She was one of the first doctors to use natural progesterone to treat menopausal symptoms, and this revised edition includes a clear primer on the latest in hormone replacement therapy and how to determine if it's right for you. Northrup also expounds upon the benefits of acupuncture and herbalism—as well as emotional self-analysis—for alleviating hot flashes and mood swings. —Erica Jorgensen

“I’ve changed a bit since high school. Back then I said no to using and selling drugs. I washed on a normal basis and still had good credit.”

Introducing Laurie Notaro, the leader of the Idiot Girls’ Action-Adventure Club. Every day she fearlessly rises from bed to defeat the evil machinations of dolts, dimwits, and creepy boyfriends—and that’s before she even puts on a bra.

For the past ten years, Notaro has been entertaining Phoenix newspaper readers with her wildly amusing autobiographical exploits and unique life experiences. She writes about a world of hourly-wage jobs that require absolutely no skills, a mother who hands down judgments more forcefully than anyone seated on the Supreme Court, horrific high school reunions, and hangovers that leave her surprised that she woke up in the first place.

The misadventures of Laurie and her fellow Idiot Girls (“too cool to be in the Smart Group”) unfold in a world that everyone will recognize but no one has ever described so hilariously. She delivers the goods: life as we all know it.