Books

Calling upon real experiences as a rookie physician, Audrey Young explains the heartfelt, busy, and noble lives of a Seattle hospital's staff and clientele in The House of Hope and Fear: Life in a Big City Hospital.

Move the rock band out of your living room and into real life with Jessica Hopper's all-purpose guide to making/spreading some real rock fever.

Acclaimed author Maile Meloy's Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It finds women disenchanted, disempowered, and hindered by the worlds they live inside.

Non-conformist, independent woman, and repeat runaway bride, Idina Sackville's fantastic stories of love, lust, and leaving are told through the eyes of her great-grandaughter, author Frances Osborne, in The Bolter.

Caretaker. Cultural icon. Paid by the hour. The enigma that is the American baby-sitter is explored in all it's endearing/smart/scary/sexy glory in Miriam Forman-Brunell's Babysitter: An American History.

If the evil stepmother myth is dissolved, it's at least explained in Wednesday Martin's inquisitive book Stepmonster: A New Look at Why Real Stepmothers Think, Feel and Act the Way We Do.

Author Rachel Lehmann-Haupt explores the options of single motherhood through the insights and interviews of In Her Own Sweet Time: Unexpected Adventures in Finding Love, Commitment, and Motherhood.

The Book of Dads: Essays on the Joys, Perils, and Humiliations of Fatherhood offers a heartfelt guide to understanding the role of "Dad" through collected essays on the highs lows, and strange adventures of modern paternity.

Scrumptious, heartwarming, and totally animal un-influenced, Isa Chandra Moskowitz's menu in Vegan Brunch is sure to win over every kind of eater.

Ninni Holmqvist's fertility sci-fi imagines a dystopia based upon a woman's physical productivity--be they making babies or being harvested for vital organs--in the book The Unit.