Too on the nose? Sorry. Let me dial it back.  I’m Mike Birbiglia and I’m a comedian. You may know me from Comedy Central or This American Life or The Bob & Tom Show, but you’ve never seen me like this before. Naked. Wait, that’s the name of another book. Also I’m not naked as there are no pictures in my book. Also, if there were naked pictures of me, you definitely wouldn’t buy it, though you might sneak a copy into the back corner of the bookstore and show it to your friend and laugh. Okay, let’s get off the naked stuff. This is my first book. It’s difficult to describe. It’s a comedic memoir, but I’m only 32 years old so I’d hate for you to think I’m “wrapping it up,” so to speak. But I tell some personal stories. Some REALLY personal stories. Stories that I considered not publishing time and time again, especially when my father said, “Michael, you might want to stay away from the per­sonal stuff.” I said, “Dad, just read the dedication.” (Which I’m telling you to do too.) Some of the stories are about my childhood, some are about girls I made out with when I was thirteen, some are about my parents, and some are, of course, about my bouts with sleepwalking. Bring this book to bed. And sleepwalk with me.

    In his first-ever work of autobiography, the comedian and New York Times bestselling author tells how a freakish medical condition descended upon him one October afternoon and led him to the brink of death – in a New York hospital “consistently rated one of the ten best in the country.” What happens when “one of the funniest people in America” (CBS News Sunday Morning) comes face to face with his own mortality? An Unexpected Twist is in equal parts harrowing and hilarious – and a moving affirmation of what it means to be alive.

     Heather Sellers is face-blind-that is, she has prosopagnosia, a rare neurological condition that prevents her from reliably recognizing people's faces. Growing up, unaware of the reason for her perpetual confusion and anxiety, she took what cues she could from speech, hairstyle, and gait. But she sometimes kissed a stranger, thinking he was her boyfriend, or failed to recognize even her own father and mother. She feared she must be crazy. Yet it was her mother who nailed windows shut and covered them with blankets, made her daughter walk on her knees to spare the carpeting, had her practice secret words to use in the likely event of abduction. Her father went on weeklong "fishing trips" (aka benders), took in drifters, wore panty hose and bras under his regular clothes. Heather clung to a barely coherent story of a "normal" childhood in order to survive the one she had. That fairy tale unraveled two decades later when Heather took the man she would marry home to meet her parents and began to discover the truth about her family and about herself. As she came at last to trust her own perceptions, she learned the gift of perspective: that embracing the past as it is allows us to let it go. And she illuminated a deeper truth-that even in the most flawed circumstances, love may be seen and felt. Watch a Video

    From a disaster building a rock garden, to further adventures with greenhouses, woodland gardens, not to mention cats and treacle, Nichols has left us a true gardening classic.

    Emboldened by the cool confidence that comes with the end of one's 20s plus the newfound independence of an attachment-free lifestyle, Mamrie commits herself to living life as fully as possible. She seeks out once-in-a-lifetime experiences (like meeting Dolly Parton), bucket-list goals (like visiting the Moulin Rouge), and madcap adventures (like going anchors-away on a Backstreet Boys cruise)--all while diving back into the dating world for the first time in a decade.In I've Got This Round, readers will find the same shameless honesty and I'll-try-anything-once spirit they loved in You Deserve a Drink. Mamrie doubles down on her strong female friendships, her willingness to engage in shenanigans, and her inimitable candor, taking the reader along for a wild and unforgettable journey through adulting.

    In these uncensored memoirs, he shares his thoughts and bares his soul. Here is the most unorthodox book yet from this controversial man of the cloth.

    No one knows this better than author, naturalist, and adventurer Sy Montgomery. To research her books, Sy has traveled the world and encountered some of the planet's rarest and most beautiful animals. From tarantulas to tigers, Sy's life continually intersects with and is informed by the creatures she meets. This restorative memoir reflects on the personalities and quirks of thirteen animals--Sy's friends--and the truths revealed by their grace. It also explores vast themes: the otherness and sameness of people and animals; the various ways we learn to love and become empathetic; how we find our passion; how we create our families; coping with loss and despair; gratitude; forgiveness; and most of all, how to be a good creature in the world.

    What was missing from their lives was children. But they knew in Eastern Europe, there were children who were missing parents-and they set out to find their family. This is Theresa's account of how Natalie and Lana came to be her daughters-a journey that takes readers not only to Moscow and Kiev but into the deepest parts of a mother's heart. Reid addresses the issues that arise for many an adoptive parent- including the guilt over taking children away from their roots, and the slow, stumbling steps toward trust and tenderness that played out between them. For any parent, adoptive or not, this book offers not only a compelling story but valuable insights into the transformative power of loving a child.

    She knew she needed to confront her fears. She made a to-do list for the life she wanted. No more struggling to please everyone else. No more dulling the pain. No more avoiding the scary stuff. From now on, she’ll focus only on the expectations she has for herself. With her inviting warmth and trademark intimacy, Jessica reflects on the example of her daughters and son, reclaiming her power and taking the lead in her own life.

    Norman’s story begins with a portrait, both harrowing and hilarious, of a Midwest boyhood summer working in a bookmobile, in the shadow of a grifter father and under the erotic tutelage of his brother’s girlfriend. His life story continues in places as far-flung as the Arctic, where he spends part of a decade as a translator of Inuit tales—including the story of a soapstone carver turned into a goose whose migration-time lament is “I hate to leave this beautiful place”—and in his beloved Point Reyes, California, as a student of birds. In the Arctic, he receives news over the radio that “John Lennon was murdered tonight in the city of New York in the USA.” And years later, in Washington, D.C., another act of deeply felt violence occurs in the form of a murder-suicide when Norman and his wife loan their home to a poet and her young son. Norman’s story is also stitched together with moments of uncanny solace. Of life in his Vermont farmhouse Norman writes, “Everything I love most happens most every day.” In the hands of Howard Norman, author of The Bird Artist and What Is Left the Daughter, life’s arresting strangeness is made into a profound, creative, and redemptive memoir.

     In "How to Look Spectacular: A Starlet's Confessions", Kaling gives her tongue-in-cheek secrets for surefire on-camera beauty, ("Your natural hair color may be appropriate for your skin tone, but this isn't the land of appropriate-this is Hollywood, baby. Out here, a dark-skinned woman s traditional hair color is honey blonde.") "Player" tells the story of Kaling being seduced and dumped by a female friend in L.A. ("I had been replaced by a younger model. And now they had matching bangs.") In "Unlikely Leading Lady", she muses on America's fixation with the weight of actresses, ("Most women we see onscreen are either so thin that they're walking clavicles or so huge that their only scenes involve them breaking furniture.") And in "Soup Snakes", Kaling spills some secrets on her relationship with her ex-boyfriend and close friend, B.J. Novak ("I will freely admit: my relationship with B.J. Novak is weird as hell.") Mindy turns the anxieties, the glamour, and the celebrations of her second coming-of-age into a laugh-out-loud funny collection of essays that anyone who's ever been at a turning point in their life or career can relate to. And those who've never been at a turning point can skip to the parts where she talks about meeting Bradley Cooper.

    She fell in love with the silence, and in this profound, frank memoir she describes how she explored this new love, searching for silence and solitude.

    Its exciting account of air adventure, combined with lyrical prose and the spirit of a philosopher, makes it one of the most popular works ever written about flying. Translated by Lewis Galantière.

    Waiting for My Cats to Die is a passionately and profoundly honest look at what happens the moment you realize--beyond a shadow of a doubt--that some day the credits will roll on your life. There are all those things you haven't done yet. There are all those things you have and wish you hadn't. In the battle against time, a frontal attack is the best strategy. Horn explores abandoned cemeteries and descends into crypts. She researches long-lost relatives, interviews the elderly, and learns all she can about the ghost haunting her apartment. No sign indicating the downward pull of things goes unnoticed. And yet life, with so much to celebrate, is irresistible. Here is a wonderful, quirky, refreshing memoir of hilarity and heartache: life at the mid-point of life.

    The delicate negotiation that follows is a carefully constructed reality between what Jamie is willing to acknowledge and what she is not.Jamie Patterson is a writer, teacher, runner, and dog lover. A former spokesperson for the American Red Cross and the Girl Scouts, Jamie is now an academic editor.