"Elegy plus comedy is the only way to express how we live in the world today, says a character in Sigrid Nunez's ninth novel. The Vulnerables offers a meditation on our contemporary era, as a solitary female narrator asks what it means to be alive at this complex moment in history and considers how our present reality affects the way a person looks back on her past. Humor, to be sure, is a priceless refuge. Equally vital is connection with others,...

"The second in this hilarious cozy mystery series features a woman who is a talent agent for show biz animals and discovers that she has a talent herself: solving crimes. Kay Powell, theatrical agent to non-human animals, is babysitting--that is, birdsitting--her client, a parrot named Barney, on the set of his new TV show, Dead City. When the show's charismatic star is shot in his trailer between scenes, the only eyewitness to the crime is--you guessed...

Mia's grandmother moves in with her family. Mia doesn't speak Spanish, and Abuela doesn't speak English, but a parrot named Mango may be able to help.

"The week of her wedding, the bride is visited by a bird she recognizes as her dead grandmother because of the cornflower blue line beneath her eyes, her dubious expression, and the way she asks: What is the Internet? Her grandmother is a parakeet. She says not to get married. She says: Go and find your brother. In the days that follow, the bride's march to the altar becomes a wild and increasingly fragmented, unstable journey that bends toward the...

Pablo, nearly ten, has many questions about his origins and how he arrived at Isla as a baby, but finding the answers may mean losing his lifetime companion, Birdy the parrot.

"A funny, noisy parrot comes into Jack's world and brings him closer to his dad in an unexpected and moving way"--

Sometimes flying means keeping your feet on the ground... Born in a dismal room in a pet store, Alastair the African grey parrot dreams of escape to bluer skies. He'd like nothing more than to fly away to a palm tree with his beloved sister, Aggie. But when Aggie is purchased by twelve-year-old Fritz, and Alastair is adopted by elderly dance-enthusiast and pie-baker Albertina Plopky, the future looks ready to crash-land. In-between anxiously plucking...

"Lorito the bilingual parrot translates for Max and Abuela, but without him they must figure out how to communicate."--