On this 40th anniversary year of Earth Day, I can’t think of anything better to read than a biography of Rachel Carson, arguably the founder of the modern environmental movement. Though not necessarily new, Linda Lear’s biography RACHEL CARSON: A WITNESS FOR NATURE is well worth reading. It delves deeply into Carson’s life, loves and motivations, which offers remarkable insights into her career. It’s a scholarly but hardly dry read. I highly recommend this. (Paperback, $17.95) Recommended by Kelly.

Fever Crumb is a great character in a tough spot. In the London of the future, she’s one of the last remaining members of a sub-species of people the rest of the population had hoped they’d exterminated. An orphan with a mysterious scar on the back of her head, Fever has been raised in secret among the member of the Order of Engineers. Under their tutelage, she has learned only to think not to feel. This is a handicap that, as her once calm life begins unravel, she will need to overcome. This is a multi-layered and satisfying science fiction book for teens and adults alike. (Hardcover, $17.99) Recommended by Kelly.

THE TIME TRAVELLER’S GUIDE TO MEDIEVAL ENGLAND: A HANDBOOK FOR VISITORS TO THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY, is a fabulous romp through times unimaginable. Don’t let the first chapter’s rather graphic depiction of overcrowding and the plague put you off. Historian Ian Mortimer is an excellent writer simply preoccupied by how people managed in another time. Truly a travelogue for those who might wax nostalgic about simpler times, readers will learn everything from what to wear (weasel if you’re royalty, homespun if you’re not), where to stay (inns, monasteries, or castles), and what to eat (bacon if you’re royalty, rats if you’re not). Only occasionally nauseating, it’s a fascinating read. (Hardcover, $26.00) Recommended by Kelly.

SNOOP: WHAT YOUR STUFF SAYS ABOUT YOU by Sam Gosling will vindicate any of you closet snoopers out there. You can learn a lot about a person by rifling through their bathroom cabinet, bookshelf, and spice rack. And, according to psychologist Gosling, you should want to do so. Not only is this book filled with interesting ways to interpret stuff and associated ways of arranging it, it also has many nifty, quick Reader’s Digest-type personality quizzes to take that will give you quick insight even into people you thought you knew through and through. (Paperback, $15.95) Recommended by Kelly.

Though usually more comfortable with non-fiction books, I’ve read my share of cozy mysteries and have recently found a series I really enjoy. Blaize Clement’s Dixie Hemingway series about a cat/dog sitter features fast-moving plots, fully rounded characters, accurate animal information and a Florida Keys setting that offers vicarious sunsets and breezes for these cold, gray months. (Paperback, $7.99) Kelly recommends.

For those of you currently or formerly religious gals and blokes who’ve been frightened by its reflective cover and less-than-subtle title, THE GOD DELUSION by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins is a brave, compelling, and only occasionally arrogant deconstruction of centuries of religious belief. Your eyes won’t bleed; your fingertips won’t be singed. If you’re a thinker, delve in.  ($15.95, paperback) Kelly recommends.

Part travel book, part cultural critique, and part ode to the bicycle, David Byrne’s BICYCLE DIARIES is simply a pleasure to read. Singer, writer, filmmaker and renaissance man Byrne recounts equally joyous and harrowing experiences astraddle his bicycle, his vehicle of choice. David Byrne is how occasionally irreverent Christian writer Anne Lamott imagines God. If this is how God writes and lives, I’m a follower. (Hardcover, $25.95). Recommended by Kelly.

Though most of you have probably already seen the movie, Julia Child’s memoir MY LIFE IN FRANCE is well worth the read. It yields insights into the legend that can’t be captured on film. For instance, you wouldn’t know it from Streep’s bold portrayal that for the lion’s share of her life, Child lacked confidence and felt sad and frustrated that for years she had been sheltered from the larger world that France and her husband opened up to her. Also, her detailed, sumptuous descriptions and spot-on recall of long-past favorite meals are astounding. Don’t read this book hungry. (Softcover, $15.00). Recommended by Kelly.

THE BIBLE SALESMAN by Clyde Edgerton is every bit as quirky and hilarious as novels by venerable Southern authors Eudora Welty, Erskine Caldwell, and Walker Percy. Throughout the course of the novel, our naive young hero questions his already tenuous faith and falls in with a car thief who has convinced him they’re both working undercover for the FBI. Don’t read it in a quiet place; you’ll be asked to leave. (Softcover, $13.99). Recommended by Kelly.

Retired episcopal bishop John Shelby Spong has hit another one out of the progressive theological ballpark with ETERNAL LIFE: A NEW VISION. This new book, quite possibly his last, confronts human beings’ most pervasive fear, death and oblivion, in a way that doesn’t require them to believe in religious fairy tales. (Hardcover, $24.99). Recommended by Kelly.