Charlotte

The Cute Book
by Aranzi Aronzo
Has it been a while since you smiled at something cute? Or had the pleasure of making simple, yet satisfying crafts? All you need is this book, some felt, and a needle and thread and you'll be on your way to crafting miniatures robot pandas, bunnies, tad poles, or bad guys. Cute.

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
by Alison Bechdel
This was my pick for the best book of 2006! I devoured this brilliantly-told graphic novel memoir in an afternoon.
Alison Bechdel, a veteran comic writer, here gives us her memoir of childhood, the drama of an imperfect family, her relationship with an emotionally-absent father, and sexual discovery in drawings that are cartoon-ish but elegant, reproductions of diary entries, and reflections aided by Proust, Wilde and Camus (some of her father's favorites). She conveys what was never said, because it was unspeakable (her father's relationships with young men), and what was missing (tenderness, a smile on her stoic father's face) in an unsentimental, but deeply moving way.

The Gift
by Hafiz
Hafiz's words are simple and profound. You'll keep the gift on the top of your books-to-read pile and open it up every day.

Sex, Time and Power
by Leonard Shlain
Leonard Shlain offers a new perspective on the history of the inequality between the sexes, and he forces us to reevaluate the role of women in the development and evolution of concepts and conventions central to our lives. He argues that woman's understanding of the relationship between her monthly cycle and the cycle of the moon gave birth to the concept of time, and gave her power, which men would envy and supress over the course of history.

Mountain Man Dance Moves
by McSweeneys
Only McSweeney's would publish a book this ridiculous—but that is a compliment! Here those clever editors have rescued it from its tired and lonely occupation with groceries and infused it with new life. I'm sure you've been curious about "the least omomatopoetic verbs" or "words to know when listening to German industrial music" or at least "what makes unicorns cry.

Metphors We Live By
by George Lakoff
George Lakoff is well known these days for his writing on political language and framing (Don't Think of an Elephant, Moral Politics, whose freedom?). This book, written in the '70s, explains the essence of his beliefs: that the way we see the world and talk about it is, in essence, metaphorical. We live by metaphors.