Jesse is a twenty-nine-year-old adrift in San Francisco's demi-monde of sexually ambiguous, drug-taking outsiders, desperately trying to sustain a connection with her bisexual boyfriend. She becomes caretaker and confidante to Madame Pig, a grotesque, besotted recluse. Jesse also meets Madison - Pig's daughter or lover or both - who uses others' desires for her own purposes, and who leads Jesse into a world beyond all boundaries. As startling, original and vital as it was when first published, Suicide Blonde is an intensely erotic story of one young woman's sexual and psychological odyssey, and a modern cult classic.

Menopause hit Darcey Steinke hard. First came hot flushes. Then insomnia. Then depression. As she struggled to understand what was happening to her, she slammed up against a culture of silence and sexism. Some promoted hormone replacement therapy, others encouraged acceptance, but there was little that offered a path to understanding menopause in an engaged way. Flash Count Diary is a powerful exploration into aspects of menopause that have rarely been written about. It is a deeply feminist book, honest about the intimations of mortality that menopause signals but also an argument for the ascendency, beauty and power of the post-reproductive years in women's lives.

Paperback is the ideal format for this acclaimed anthology in which twenty-one prominent American writers -- all of whom came of age in the baby boom and Generation X years -- look at the New Testament with a fresh eye toward its meaning for them, and for us, today. These thought-provoking essays will reassure, excite, and inspire anyone who has felt the need to approach spirituality in a personal or unorthodox way.

With an introduction by Rick Moody and an afterword by Darcey Steinke, Joyful Noise includes contributions from:

Madison Smartt Bell -- April Bernard -- Catherine Bowman -- Joseph Caldwell -- Benjamin Cheever -- Lydia Davis -- Jeffrey Eugenides -- Eurydice -- Coco Fusco -- Lucy Grealy -- Barry Hannah -- bell hooks -- Jim Lewis -- Ann Patchett -- Ann Powers -- Joanna Scott -- Lisa Shea -- Stephen Westfall -- Kim Wozencraft