Deb Olin Unferth

Two auditors for the U.S. egg industry go rogue and conceive a plot to steal a million chickens in the middle of the night -- an entire egg farm's worth of animals. Janey and Cleveland -- a spirited former runaway and the officious head of audit -- assemble a precarious, quarrelsome team and descend on the farm on a dark spring evening. A series of catastrophes ensues.

The author discusses her time with Sandinista revolutionaries in Nicaragua, describing her romantic affair with a Christian idealist, their inability to find people who welcomed them, and their struggles with disillusionment.

Typing up positive-thought messages for a self-help guru isn't exactly Daphne's idea of dream job. But to regain custody of her nine-year-old son, she's willing to try. A few weeks later, when that same self-help guru asks her to take care of 100 endangered parrots, Daphne is willing to try that too. What ensues is a hilarious, heartbreaking tragicomedy involving the love of her life, the landlady from hell, three house painters, a flock of passenger...