The Outdoor Room from Aussie garden guru Jamie Durie, host of the Australian TV show Backyard Blitz, explains that no matter how big or small an outdoor space is, it can still be transformed into a place to relax or entertain. Working on enclosed spaces only, Durie covers all aspects of outdoor rooms, from walls and floors to furnishing and lighting. Durie’s creative approach employs such materials as cor-ten (bendable sheets of metal), driftwood, timber and foliage to shape a space; he suggests making a path out of stepping stones to make people take “extra care” with their steps and “consequently a little more time to soak up the surroundings.”

Sweeping and fearless, World Famous Love Acts overrides stereotypes of race, age, gender, and sexuality. In this remarkable debut collection, Brian Leung creates a diverse landscape of distinctive characters. Among them, a 4’ 10” hyperblonde Asian adult-film actress in Los Angeles, an archeologist working in China with her sun-scarred skin, a Midwestern screenwriter trying to “burn off” his accent, and a man with AIDS waiting to go home to die. If that’s not enough for you, the author’s HOT! (Check out the April 2004 issue of Instinct).

Botany might not be the sexiest subject, but throw in some famous people, a little bohemian adventure, and a fifty-year love affair and you have a captivating story. Both: A Portrait in Two Parts chronicles the lives of Dwight Ripley, the child heir to an American railroad fortune, and Rupert Barneby, the product of a wealthy, baronial English upbringing. They meet at a rich-kids boarding school in 1925 and became inseparable ever after. They travel to the states, look at some plants, and hang out with W.H. Auden, Jackson Pollock, Clement Greenburg, and cool people hanging out in the New York art scene of the 1950s..

The author of the acclaimed transgressive cult classic Dear Dead Person returns with Headless, a long awaited second collection of brilliantly written, outrageously imaginative and comedic short stories. In Headless, he turns his daredevil wit and fearless storytelling gifts on subjects ranging from Hitler’s secret life as a skier to the philosophical musings of identical twin porn stars to the travails of the world’s most sitcom-defying family. Weissman’s dysfunctional, hilarious, and strangely moving tales of life in contemporary America are a real and unique treasure.

Eddie De Oliveira got Lucky with his fist novel. Sam is a teen boy who’s attracted to both boys and girls. He doesn’t know what to call himself or where he fits in. Then he meets Toby, another boy who likes both boys and girls. Are they destined to be just friends, more than friends, or less than friends? And what would happen if they were attracted to the same girl? Ah, there’s nothing like a summer of angst and boy-on-boy hearts afflutter.