Frank Carlson Library

New York Times Bestseller: This anthology of Erma Bombeck’s most memorable and humorous essays is a tribute to one of America’s sharpest wits.
When she began writing her regular newspaper column in 1965, Erma Bombeck’s goal was to make housewives laugh. Thirty years later, she had published more than four thousand columns, and earned countless laughs—from housewives, presidents, and everyone in between....

Erma Bombeck takes on the unforgiving frontier of American suburbia For years, the Bombecks have heard rumors of a magical land called Suburbia where the air is clean, the grass is trimmed, and children don't risk getting mugged on their walk to school. After watching their friends flee the city for subdivided utopias like Bonaparte's Retreat and Mortgage Mañana, Erma and her family load up their belongings and cry, Station wagons... ho!"   But...

Three people--a suburban housewife, a talented documentary photographer, and a detective--living lives they never wanted, hiding secrets that even those closest to them would never suspect, will find that the past doesn't recede ... and that desperation and hunger can lurk behind even the prettiest facades--

If you're young, old, or in the middle, get ready to laugh out loud with Erma Bombeck, America's funniest lady. This outrageously witty book proves that humor is the best way to keep on keel-even with a teenager in the house. You've finally figured out what makes your child tick, when one day you wake up to discover a teenager under your roof. Suddenly life is filled with a whole new set of worries: Why isn't she dating? Why is she dating? Why can't...

Meet the women of American Housewife: they wear lipstick, pearls, and sunscreen, even when it's cloudy. They casserole. They pinwheel. They pump the salad spinner like it's a CPR dummy. And then they kill a party crasher, carefully stepping around the body to pull cookies out of the oven. These twelve irresistible stories take us from a haunted prewar Manhattan apartment building to the set of a rigged reality television show, from the unique initiation...

When her contractor's unfaithful wife is brutally murdered, former TV anchorwoman Ali Reynolds sets out to prove the husband's innocence in spite of skepticism on the part of Ali's detective boyfriend, a situation that strains their relationship and catches the attention of the real killer.

"At night, down-to-earth Las Vegas socialite, Stacy Troy, dreams that everyone is dead. Nosebleeds and head-splitting alarms only she can hear become a regular occurrence. In her nightmares, Stacy dismembers bodies, stuffs them into a shopping cart, then takes them two at a time to the pile where she will burn them and say her last goodbyes. Waking nightly to her own screams, Stacy is convinced she's on the brink of a mid-life crisis and begins secretly...

"At an elite private school nestled in the Colorado mountains, Natalie, an office assistant, dreams of having a life like the school moms she deals with every day. Women like Brooke--a gorgeous heiress, ferociously loving mother and serial cheater--and Asha, an overprotective mom who suspects her husband of having an affair. Their fates are bound by the handsome assistant athletic director Nicholas, whom Natalie loves, Brooke wants and Asha needs....

This fun but familiar novel from Green (The Other Woman) follows the seemingly perfect lives of two women--one married with children, one single with a high-powered job, who wish to see how the other half lives, only to have the misfortune to get what they wish for. When Amber Winslow, a wealthy Connecticut housewife replete with wealthy husband, full-time nanny and golden retriever, grows tired of her town's vicious social scene, she responds to...