The Wonder Garden by Lauren Acampora

The conforming doll-house characters face dark veins of humor as debut author Lauren Acampora illustrates how vanilla suburbs stamp out individuality in favor of homogeneity in her nuanced collection of stories. Even as a few characters try to wrestle out of the upper middle class’s suffocating chokehold, stagnation is a way of life inside the carefully trimmed hedges and white picket fences. Sneak peeks at paranoid and controlling characters trying to hold on to a different way of life reveal the menace that lurks just beneath the surface of middle-class respectability. A searing indictment of the Great American suburban experiment.

Rain: A Natural And Cultural History by Cynthia Barnett

Even if you’re the kind who can’t take soggy weather, you’ll love Rain: A Natural and Cultural History. A whole host of intriguing topics — rainmakers, the earthy perfume of rain, the mechanics of rain — and more are captured under that cheerful brolly. Environmental journalist Cynthia Barnett travels the world over (from the wettest place in the world, Cheerapunji, in India, to an umbrella store in London) to deliver stories dripping with personality. Her enthusiasm for her subject translates brilliantly on to the page. For lovers of social science, the perfect shelter to dive into on a rainy day.