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An approachable, expert-fueled guide to dealing with the legal, financial, and logistical hurdles of a parent’s death—without losing your sense of humor.

Whether you’ve recently lost a parent or you’re just trying to plan for the toughest day of your life so far, you’re probably experiencing a lot of dizzying emotions. Unfortunately, our legal and financial systems don’t care about your feelings. Whether you’re holding it together or falling apart, you are going to need to enter an overwhelming labyrinth of paperwork and bureaucracy.

But you don’t have to do it alone.

After losing both parents, Becky Robison devoted herself to making death and postdeath logistics easier on others—reading up on estate law, becoming a trained death doula, and starting the website DeadParentsWhatNow.com. She draws on her own experience, plus interviews with experts ranging from monument makers to morticians, to hold your hand through:

• Asking your parents about their end-of-life wishes while you can
• Getting a body buried, cremated, or donated to science
• Planning a funeral
• Securing a death certificate
• Dealing with your parent’s property—or debt
• Handling even more tricky issues you never wanted to be in charge of
• And still being able to laugh, a little, sometimes

Nothing about this is easy. The good news is you have someone on your side.

This pocket-sized guide is the perfect gift for birdwatchers, bird owners, and anyone fascinated by our feathered friends

Bird-brained: it’s not just an insult anymore. These tiny dinosaurs have captured the human imagination since the dawn of time, and this illustrated, accessible guide covers it all—from bird anatomy and behavior to migration patterns and bird-watching tips. Experts and bird beginners alike will learn about:

• How dinosaurs became birds
• Bird behavior: migration, murmuration, and mobbing
• Birder lingo 101
• How to identify backyard birds
• Decoding birdsong & “talking” birds
• How we domesticated birds

With handy diagrams, helpful tips, and fun trivia, this handy compendium is the perfect companion for anyone looking to get a bird’s-eye view on our avian allies, whether in the great outdoors or at their window birdfeeder.

From the best-selling Worst-Case Scenario series, a hilarious and highly portable manual for surviving any car disaster, from hurricane weather to high-speed pursuits.

Getting into a car is the most dangerous thing most of us do every day. And it’s not just the risk of an accident. What if there’s a blizzard? What if your brakes malfunction? What if you’re stuck in traffic and you need to pee?

Good news: The Worst-Case Scenario Pocket Guide: Driving is here to help. Learn how to:

• Evade a pursuer on the highway
• Escape from a trunk
• Drive down a flight of stairs
• Bail out at high speeds
• And more!

Keep one in your glove compartment at all times!

Bridget Jones’s Diary meets What We Do in the Shadows in this darkly funny and cozy romantic comedy about a vampire finding herself and falling in love during the Christmas season.

Tiffenie may be three hundred years old, but she’s still a hot mess. The vampire is tragically single, works a dead-end job at a blood bank, and spends her nights marathoning Hallmark Channel movies with her cat.

When Tiffenie inherits a fixer-upper home in Valentine, Vermont, thanks to a case of mistaken (okay, stolen) identity, she seizes the chance to get her life back on track. With her newly undead neighbor (it was an accident!) in tow, Tiffenie is determined to live out her holiday rom-com dreams in this picture-perfect town.

But between the mystery of her stolen identity, small-town drama, and the arrival of her insufferable vampire ex-boyfriend Vlad, getting her happily ever after with a smoking-hot Christmas tree farmer won’t be easy. Tiffenie must embark on a journey of self-acceptance—with the help of a few therapy sessions—for the first time in her immortal life.

With biting wit and plenty of spice, Undead and Unwed will make you laugh until you cry as Tiffenie bungles her way toward self-improvement and true love.

An alchemist and his young nephew hunt down a legend in this profound and unsettling speculative Western, for fans of Karen Russell and Victor LaValle.

Alone in a frontier town in the brand-new state of Washington, Gentle Montgomery is grieving his best friend. Liam, a self-taught alchemist, was killed when he tried to capture a creature that shouldn’t exist: a giant salamander that drives men mad. When Gentle’s nephew, Kitt, arrives at his doorstep, the two set out together to track the monster down so they can use its blood in an alchemical formula that will bring Liam back to life.

It’s a hard and haunted journey through the Northwestern frontier. The salamander produces surreal nightmares and waking dreams of a blighted, burning future. And Gentle and Kitt soon find themselves pursued by a bloodthirsty hunter, a sadistic judge, and a doomsday cult, all of whom have their own plans for the river monster. Armed with nothing but Liam’s alchemical notebooks, they must not only find the salamander but learn to understand it—and the terrifying visions it causes—before it’s too late.

Dark and compelling, The Great Work is an arcane adventure through the wilderness of friendship and the rotten heart of the early American empire.

Sixty bizarre and beautiful marine creatures offer their best tips for self-confidence, serenity, and fulfillment—drawn from real-life facts about our fascinating natural world.

If you sometimes wish to simply sink back into the depths of the ocean, great news—the strange little guys who still live down there will receive you with open arms (and fins, claws, and tentacles). But if you’re not quite ready to take to the sea, they’ve also got some solid advice for those cursed to live on solid ground.

In Leaving the Ocean Was a Mistake, Earth’s weirdest sea creatures offer their favorite tips for improving your life on land. Get to know these friendly denizens of the deep:

• The star tunicate, who avoids anxiety—by digesting its own brain
• The gloomy octopus, who asserts its boundaries—by throwing dirt at anyone who bothers it
• The fire-breathing shrimp, who gets its feelings out—by vomiting bioluminescent goo
• The deep-sea anglerfish, who expresses love—by fusing with its mate
• And more wonderfully wacky undersea weirdos who really know how to live!

Beautifully illustrated with charming watercolor portraits of the ocean’s most eccentric creatures, Leaving the Ocean Was a Mistake will help you bring a freewheeling, relaxed, self-actualized ocean spirit to even the driest life.