Great reviews and heavy holds lists for Jonathan Tropper’s newest novel This is Where I Leave You speak to the comfort readers find in being able to view family farce from a safe and well-told distance.

Sitting shiva for his agnostic father, Judd Foxman is also mourning his marriage and career. (They go hand in hand when your wife’s sleeping with your teeth-bleached, egomanic boss.) His self-involved siblings and cleaveage-bearing mother enjoy nothing more than picking at each other’s tenderest scabs, leaving them all with impressive emotional scars. For readers who like their domestic drama over the top (and I mean that in the best way):

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
Enid Lambert is desperate for one last perfect Christmas before her husband Alfred’s Parkinson’s-induced dementia turns his family into nothing more than an unreliable memory. The three Lambert children are far from perfect, of course, and they return to St. Louis with emotional baggage from their adult lives that battles for attention with the unpacked wrongs from their childhood.

An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England by Brock Clarke
After you’ve served a prison sentence for “accidentally” burning down Emily Dickinson’s house, it’s really no surprise that blame falls to you when Edith Wharton’s crib gets torched. Sam Pulsifer tries to clear his name while living with his unabashedly alcoholic parents and stalking his estranged wife.

Between, Georgia by Joshilyn Jackson
Nonny has not one, but two dysfunctional families, and now she’s stuck in a family feud that began the night she was born. Her biological family, the Crabtrees, are the poor lawless outcasts of their rural Georgia town;  her adopted family, the Fretts, are the upper-crust, can-do-no-wrong type. Her adopted mother is blind and deaf, her rocker husband is always half out the door, and her  biological grandmother sets her Dobermans on anyone she doesn’t like.

Why Did I Ever by Mary Robison
Script doctor Money Breton’s got her hands full with three ex-husbands, teams of ridiculous movie people demanding her help, money problems, a new boyfriend, undermedicated ADD, a methadone-addicted daughter, and a son whose recent assault may have exposed him to AIDS. It shouldn’t be funny. It really shouldn’t. But what can I tell you? It really, really is.

Mermaids in the Basement by Michael Lee West
Mourning the death of her mother, Renata escapes to her grandmother’s cottage, but instead of finding rest and relaxation, finds more stress, thanks to her family. Eventually, she discovers that her parents led secret lives to which she was never privy, until now: Grandmother Honora and pals have decided it’s time to let all of the skeletons out of the family closets. And to top matters off, when her father’s new fiancée is found unconscious in the pool at their engagement party, Renata becomes the prime suspect.

Kick Me by Paul Feig
The creator of the short-lived (and much mourned) TV show “Freaks and Geeks” mines the dysfunction not so much of his immediate family but of the absurdity of adolescence itself in this humorous essay collection. The humiliations of growing up are never forgotten, and in Feig’s case–that’s a good thing.

Loser Goes First by Dan Kennedy
The subtitle “My Thirty-Something Years of Dumb Luck and Minor Humiliation” really sums it up. Kennedy’s comic memoir wryly examines the genuine shock one feels when you realize that adulthood is full disappointment that you have to have to deal with yourself. The fashion, music, and other media shoutouts to the 80s and early 90s are particularly rewarding for anyone who has a love/hate relationship with grunge music and Meg Ryan movies.

In honor of the movie Zombieland opening this weekend, and in light of the recent popularity of Zombie fiction, ( and because it’s Halloween before you know it…) we bring you a selection of ghoulishly good reads. Essential reading to be prepared for the Zombie Revolution, if you will.

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance, Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem by Seth Grahame-Smith

In this clever and hip “expanded edition” of Pride and Prejudice, 85 percent of the original text has been preserved but mashed-up with “ultraviolent zombie mayhem.” When the novel opens, England has been overrun by zombies, and Elizabeth Bennett has been trained in martial arts. She and Mr. Darcy engage in all-out zombie war, brought together by their common interest in zombie-killing. A totally original spin on a classic tale.

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks

Brooks, author of the nonfiction title The Zombie Survival Guide, brings us a post-apocalyptic battle against zombies. The story is told through a series of first-person accounts by various characters around the world – first hand experiences and testimonies of survivors of a zombie war that nearly wipes out humankind. Tongue-in-cheek yet with an air of total seriousness, this is a great pick for guys.

The Living Dead by John Joseph Adams

This anthology of zombie short stories features a wide variety of zombies (who knew there were so many?). There are apocalyptic stories such as Stockholm Syndrome by David Tallerman; voodoo tales including Zora and the Zombie by Andy Duncan; historical settings as in Sherman Alexie’s Ghost Dance; and humorous satire, found in Less Than Zombie by Douglas E. Winter. Classics from Stephen King (Home Delivery) and Clive Barker (Sex, Death, and Starshine) dovetail nicely with newer fiction from the likes of Dan Simmons (This Year’s Class Picture) and Laurell K. Hamilton (Those Who Seek Forgiveness).

Patient Zero by Jonathan Mayberry

Baltimore detective Joe Ledger been secretly recruited by an ultra-secret government office to combat terrorists. But not your usual terrorists. Oh no, these terrorists have figured out how to bio-engineer zombies, to use as weapons of mass destruction. Fast-paced with tons of action, this is a modern twist on the zombie tale.

Breathers: A Zombie’s Lament by Scott G. Browne

In this black comedy (billed as a “rom-zom-com”), Andy Warner has just survived a car crash. Well, if you call being a zombie surviving. He moves into his parent’s basement to mourn the loss of his wife, who died in the crash, and finds it’s a difficult transition to go from alive to…not really dead. He’s not the only one in this boat however, and soon joins Undead Anonymous, a group of the newly undead that quickly moves from support group to activists for the flesh-eaters.