Come to Barbara’s for an evening of mystery with two of the best new writers in that treacherous genre. In Eric Stone’s THE LIVING ROOM OF THE DEAD a friend in need can be dangerous indeed in this story of love, prostitution and murder in Southeast Asia. The mountains of Colorado can be just a dangerous as Macao in Evan McNamara’s story of modern day lawmen hunting a ruthless sharpshooter in SUPERIOR POSITION.

Why do we hate, not simply as individuals, but as members of a society or culture? Why do nations love what we love, fear what we fear? Maybe the answers are to be found as much in our collective psyche as in our history. MOURNING AND MODERNITY: Essays in the Psychoanalysis of Contemporary Society, by University of Illinois professor Isaac Balbus, is a fascinating look at the roles of love, loss, and hate in modern social and political life.

Was Little Jack Horner a land squatter? Is “Baa Baa Black Sheep” a bleat about taxation? What did Jack and Jill really do up on that hill? Chris Roberts reveals the seamy and quirky stories behind our favorite nursery rhymes in HEAVY WORDS LIGHTLY THROWN. Politics and hate, subversion and gossip, are just a few of the home truths to be found in this funny and highly illuminating work.

A GUIDE TO GETTING IT: PURPOSE AND PASSION, by Oak Parker and life coach Lisa Hoth Dalton, is the perfect book for those seeking their passion and their life’s purpose. Through the stories Dalton has collected from past clients, as well as various exercises, readers will come to realize that dramatic change is not nearly as important as the simple changing of your mind.

For Michael Kimmelman, chief art critic for the New York Times, art is life’s great passion. As he brilliantly puts forth in his highly anticipated book, THE ACCIDENTAL MASTERPIECE: On the Art of Life and Vice Versa, art can sharpen our view of the world, bringing our fears, desires, and dreams into focus. For those who have not learned to recognize the art in our own lives, Kimmelman inspires us to think about the connections between art and the larger world - that is, to think more like an artist.

THE PIED PIPER OF SOUTH SHORE: Toys and Tragedy in Chicago, is a story of a store—the beloved Wee Folks Toys, of a place and time—the South Shore neighborhood of the 50s and 60s, and of a man —the author’s father, Manny Lazar—all of whom fell victim to the brutality of gangs. This winner of the USA Today Best Books of the Year 2004, True Crime category, is a perfect look at the past as it actually was, both joyful and tragic.

NEW PLAYS FROM CHICAGO is the first ever anthology of, well, new plays from Chicago. The first product of the newly formed Chicago Dramatists Press features eight works that have received recent, successful world premieres - including such acclaimed works as Arrangement for Two Violas by Susan Lieberman; The Liquid Moon by John Green; and The State of Mississippi & the Face of Emmitt Till by David Barr III. Members of the Chicago Dramatists will enact scenes and discuss these important works.

Local journalist Laurie Levy turns to fiction with her first short story collection, THE INLAND LADIES. Primarily about Midwestern women living though the end of the twentieth and beginning of the twenty-first centuries, these nineteen stories are funny, ambitious and wise. As Levy says herself, “The Midwestern woman, whether she is Chicago - street-wise, suburban savvy or Iowa - stubborn, is sophisticated, real, down to earth and loves to laugh.”

Holiday Reinhorn’s flawlessly crafted fiction has been published in such rarified journals as Tin House and Columbia. Now, in BIG CATS, thirteen of her stories have been collected for the first time. Opening with “Charlotte,” the tone of curiosity and yearning that flavors the whole book is set in this story of a young girl with a horrible injury, and her brother, spying on a new neighbor. Big Cats heralds the arrival of an important new voice.