By Lisa Kogan
208 pages; HarperStudio
Available at: Amazon.com | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound

Fans of Lisa Kogan's column in this very magazine will revel in the characteristic deadpan wit on display in her first book, Someone Will Be with You Shortly. Like the bit of banter you don't think of until ten minutes after the dinner party has broken up, Kogan's riffs on motherhood, politics, relationships, and life itself are what we wish we'd said, only sharper and funnier. ("Johannes and I are not married in the eyes of the law," she writes about her daughter's father, who lives in Switzerland, "[but] we have privately vowed to irritate each other for as long as we both shall live.") This is good stuff. And believe us: We're not just saying that because her office is down the hall.

— Sara Nelson