Better Living Through Plastic Explosives — Zsuzsi Gartner

Whether she takes on evolution and modern manhood, international adoption, real estate, the movie industry, science and faith, art, or terrorism, Gartner fillets the righteous and the ridiculous with dexterity in equal, heartbreaking, and glorious measure.

Angels crash land, lovers speak IKEA, a mountain swallows tony West Coast properties, and a killer stalks the great motivational speakers of North America.

These stories ruthlessly expose our covert fears and fathomless desires and allow us to snort with laughter -- while grieving at the grotesque world we'd live in if we all got what we wanted.