On My Radar:

The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories 2
by Joseph Gordon-Levitt & wirrow (editors)

It Books / Harper Collins
Hardcover

From the publisher website:

Actor Joseph Gordon-Levitt (The Dark Knight Rises, Inception, Looper, 500 Days of Summer) made a big splash with The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories—so now he’s back with volume 2! One of the most ingenious and successful projects to come out of Gordon-Levitt's online creative coalition hitRECord—an international collaboration of artists and writers—The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories: Volume 2 offers more quirky, delightfully small, ingeniously illustrated haiku-like tales, proving once more that the universe isn’t made of atoms; it’s made of tiny stories. The best things do come in small packages.

The universe is not made of atoms; it's made of tiny stories.

Featuring 62 contributors from the 14,946 contributions to the Tiny Stories collaboration on HITRECORD.ORG

On My Radar:

Because I Said So! - The Truth Behind the Myths, Tales, and Warnings Every Generation Passes Down to Its Kids
by Ken Jennings
Scribner / Simon & Schuster
Hardcover

From the publisher website:

Don’t cross your eyes or they’ll stay like that!

Feed a cold, starve a fever!

Don’t touch your Halloween candy until we get it checked out!

Never run with scissors

Don’t look in the microwave while it’s running!

This will go down on your permanent record

Is any of it true? If so, how true? 

Ken Jennings wants to find out if mother and father always know best. Yes, all those years you were told not to sit too close to the television (you’ll hurt your eyes!) or swallow your gum (it stays in your stomach for seven years!) or crack your knuckles (arthritis!) are called into question by our country’s leading trivia guru. Jennings separates myth from fact to debunk a wide variety of parental edicts: no swimming after meals, sit up straight, don’t talk to strangers, and so on. Armed with medical case histories, scientific findings, and even the occasional experiment on himself (or his kids), Jennings exposes countless examples of parental wisdom run amok. Whether you’re a parent who wants to know what you can stop worrying about or a kid (of any age) looking to say, “I told you so,” this is the anti–helicopter parenting book you’ve been waiting for.

On My Radar:

Trust Me, I Know What I'm Doing: 100 More Mistakes That Lost Elections, Ended Empires, and Made the World What It Is Today
by Bill Fawcett
Berkley / Penguin
Trade Paperback

From the publisher website:

Hindsight hurts.

* The British Parliament passes the Stamp Act, having the American colonies pay for their own defense—which instead starts a revolution.
* In 1929, President Herbert Hoover decides to let the economy fix itself…and the Great Depression gets greater.
* Nixon tapes everything he says in the Oval Office, believing it will all be of great historical value. He turns out to be right when those same tapes cost him his presidency.
* Charles the First cuts a deal with the Irish to fight Parliament that instead loses him public support—and later his head.

Along with 100 Mistakes that Changed the World, Trust Me, I Know What I'm Doing proves once again that when global leaders drop the ball, the whole world shakes. With a hundred more bombshell blunders—from Pickett’s Charge to the Lewinski scandal—this compendium takes a fascinating look at some of history’s greatest turns for the worse.

In My TBR Stack:

An Extraordinary Theory of Objects: A Memoir of an Outsider in Paris
by Stephanie Lacava
Harper
Hardcover

From the publisher website:

It's Girl Interrupted meets Miranda July—with a touch of Joan Didion—in this captivating collection of original essays revolving around a young American girl's coming of age in Paris. As an adolescent in a foreign country, Stephanie LaCava found an unconventional way to deal with her social awkwardness and feelings of uncertainty about the future by taking solace from the strange and beautiful objects she came across in her daily life. Filled with beautiful illustrations and providing a retrospective of nineties fashion and culture, An Extraordinary Theory of Objects: A Memoir of an Outsider in Paris is sure to be a collector's item for Francophiles or anyone who has ever found security in the strangest of places.

An awkward, curious girl growing up in a foreign country, Stephanie LaCava finds solace and security in strange yet beautiful objects.

When her father's mysterious job transports her and her family to the quaint Parisian suburb of Le Vésinet, everything changes for the young American. Stephanie sets out to explore her new surroundings and to make friends at her unconventional international school, but her curiosity soon gives way to feelings of anxiety and a deep depression.

In her darkest moments, Stephanie learns to filter the world through her peculiar lens, discovering the uncommon, uncelebrated beauty in what she finds. Encouraged by her father through trips to museums and scavenger hunts at antique shows, she traces an interconnected web of narratives of long-ago outsiders, and of objects historical and natural, that ultimately help her survive.

A series of illustrated essays that unfolds in cinematic fashion, An Extraordinary Theory of Objects offers a universal lesson—to harness the power of creativity to cope with loneliness, sadness, and disappointment to find wonder in the uncertainty of the future.