Stranger Things Happen
Kelly Link
Small Bear Press, pb, $16.00

"Kelly Link is the finest fantasy writer to appear in twenty years. She's taking the fantasy genre and remaking it, bringing it into the twenty-first century. This is a great collection." -- Steve Pasechnick

Formless: A User's Guide
Yve-Alain Bois
Zone Books, pb, $30.00

"Subverting its own encyclopedic form with wit, irreverence, and insight, Formless: A User's Guide breathes fresh life into modernism, art criticism, and the critical projects of George Bataille. The author's subtle and playful handling of their subject, combined with Bruce Mau's elegant layout, make this a book open to both linear and non-linear readings, and one whose creative applications are unlikekly to dry out any time soon." -- Bhob Rainey

Kitchen
Banana Yoshimoto
Pocket Books, pb $12.00

"This is absolutely my favorite book. Banana's style is so clean and simple. Kitchen feels like a clear blue sky on a fresh spring day to me. I love this book. No matter how many times I read it, I never get tired of it. This book make me feel alive! I'm still in love with this book." -- Vickie Yuen

Frank
by Jim Woodring
Fantagraphics, pb, $16.95

It is impossible to exhaust the rich strangeness of Frank. Alternately funny, gross, arresting, and awe-inspiring, these panels stand alone in the world of comics, and repeated rereadings only augment the enjoyment of them. Woodring's fantastic, hallucinatory world is a welcome addition to this one. -- bhob

The 5-Minute Iliad and Other Instant Classics
Fireside Books, pb, $12.00

Brief, evil, hysterically funny takes on the classics and their authors. The account of Jane Austen's career at the movies is very rude, while the "Dracula" parody is to die for and eerily like the original book. -- Alan

Mirrors
by Naguib Mahfouz
Zeitouna, pb, $19.95

Perhaps Mahfouz's most unusual work, Mirrors is a series of vignettes surrounding a (semi-) fictional writer whose tale unfolds amidst the many characters in his life and the tumultuous events of twentieth-century Egypt. Mahfouz evokes enormous personalities in a straightforward style that is beautifully complemented by Seif Wanli's elegant portraits. -- bhob

Sex: The Natural History of a Behavior
Joann Rodgers
W. H. Freeman, $32.50

With a journalist's lucid prose that makes the intricacies of evolution and sociobiology read like a suspense novel, Rodgers effectively shatters any confindence you may have had that you know a thing about sex. She elucidates the pesky, yet awe-inspiring, traits of biology, history, gender, and evolution that lie deeply embedded in our emotions, relationships and societies. Even the least scientifically minded readers will find themselves enthralled by this exploration of our most obsessed about and least understood activity." -- Jess Collins

Rough Guide to Cult Movies
Rough Guides, pb, $11.95

"Not sure what movie to rent tonight? The Rough Guide to Cult Movies is here to help. The pages of this small yet extremely packed resource are filled with all those movies you've been meaning to see, some you've been meaning to see again, and others that you've never even heard of. The reviews are thorough, entertaining, and right on target." -- Amy Lebow

Cause Celeb
by Helen Fielding
Penguin Books, pb, 13.00

Although many are quick to judge Cause Celeb, Helen Fielding's first novel as "Bridget Jones goes to Africa," they neglect the fact that Rosie Richardson is a heroine in her own right. True, she has elements of the Bridget about her -- the words charming, goofy, and hysterically funny come to mind -- but Rosie exhibits a social conscience that even our darling Bridget was lacking. Memorable characters, exciting adventures and surprising plot twists make this novel a fun read for any fan of fabulous heroines. -- Alisha

City Sister Silver
by Jachym Topol
Catbird Press, pb, $19.95

Despite the legacies of Kafka, Havel and Kundera, modern Czech fiction has received very little attention in the US. Jachym Topol is one of the most well known young writers in the Czech Republic today. This is the story of one city's struggle to find order and balance following political and social upheaval. The main character here, Potok, searches for his lost love and simultaneously his lost sister. The two characters interweave and mingle in sometimes startling ways. It is an hallucinatory account of collective reckoning among Prague's younger generation following the fall of communism. The inhabitants enact urban tribalism, nomadism, and spiritualism. They must defend against the onslaught of rival gangs, strange magic and the presence of hungry spirits under the earth. Topol evokes a stark lucid and gracefully strewn representation of life in the Eastern European underground.