Check out these new and notable winter reads:

• The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perrotta (Random House Canada, 368 pp.) — Perrotta’s latest novel is his best yet. Much like his last book, Little Children (without the carefully wrapped ending), his language is raw and hilarious, with deceptively simple, snappy and cadenced dialogue. The book follows Ruth, a high school sex education teacher in a small Midwestern town who’s thrashed by her school board for suggesting that “some people enjoy” oral sex. Seems a movement of abstinence-promoting education has risen alongside a new evangelical church that is adamant about extending its tendrils into the community.

One recent convert is Tim, a recovering addict and ex-bar-band rocker who is also the coach of a girls’ soccer team that Ruth’s daughter plays on. One evening, after a tense, physical game, he invites the girls to pray with him.

This sets off a series of confrontations between Ruth and Tim, and the dissolution of their perceived moral stances. Perrotta hasn’t written some anti-religious tract, taking cheap shots, nor has he written a text encouraging readers to rage against sexual boarders. He’s proposing questions — letting his characters talk and bat around different ideas. This one will keep you up all night trying to finish it — highly recommended.

• Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life by Steve Martin (Scribner, 224 pp.) — Short but entertaining account of Martin’s early years, before he fell into Cheaper by the Dozen hell. Fans have been curious to know why he walked away from standup comedy back in 1981, when he was at his peak. This memoir doesn’t tell all — he gives his personal life short shrift — but as an account of his creative process, it’s a great read.

• How to Build a Robot Army: Tips on Defending Planet Earth Against Alien Invaders, Ninjas, and Zombies by Daniel H. Wilson, PhD (Bloomsbury USA, 176 pp.) — The title says it all. One chapter opens with an illustration of a robot blowing a shark in half with a ray gun. Needless to say, most of the advice contained therein is uselessly hilarious.

• Rule Number Two: Lessons I Learned in a Combat Hospital by Dr. Heidi Squier Kraft (Little, Brown and Company, 256 pp.) — Glossy and terse memoir from psychologist who left her newborn twins to aid in the war in Iraq.

• The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever, selected and with introductions by Christopher Hitchens (Da Capo Press, 499 pp.) — Believer or not, this huge tome is full of great pieces from Baruch Spinoza to Mark Twain, and features unpublished essays by Salman Rushdie and Ian McEwan — each with Hitchens’s great commentary.

• 20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill (HarperCollins Canada, 336 pp.) — Horror fans should check out this collection of tales, featuring everything from lonely spectres to a murderous man-locust. Genre fiction doesn’t get any better than these sad, funny and horrifying tales — recommended.

• The Gum Thief by Douglas Coupland (Random House Canada, 288 pp.) — Coupland has been trying to catch up to his futurist reputation with his last few works, with diminishing returns. That said, this tale of retail ennui is better than last year’s disastrous JPod. Fans will want to check it out anyway; everyone else, proceed with caution.

• Best Food Writing 2007, edited by Holly Hughes (Da Capo Press, 352 pp.) — Fun, bite-sized essays and travel pieces with recipes, reviews and more — everything from finding the best taco stand in California to the secret world of tuna.

• Foreskin’s Lament: A Memoir by Shalom Auslander (Riverhead, 320 pp.) — Hilarious account of growing up in a rigid, Orthodox family, full of snappy dialogue and anecdotes (like the religious antidote to a spelling bee, the “blessing bee”).

• Humpty Dumpty in Oakland by Philip K. Dick (Tor Books, 256 pp.) — The reprints of the lost PKD (after last year’s Voices in the Street) continue with this social-realist tale of a down-and-out used car dealer. It doesn’t resemble the delirious, sci-fi he penned in later years but serves as a useful look into the making of a pulp hero.

• Our Dumb World: Atlas of the Planet Earth by The Onion (Little, Brown and Company, 256 pp.) — The first new Onion book in years — offensively hilarious.

•Starbucked: A Double Tall Tale of Caffeine, Commerce, and Culture by Taylor Clark (Little, Brown and Company, 304 pp.) — Balanced investigation into Starbucks’s coffee hegemony marred by the scattershot book of reportage and anecdotes, but full of strange and disturbing details.

• Carnal Knowledge: A Navel Gazer’s Dictionary of Anatomy, Etymology, and Trivia by Charles Hodgson (Griffin, 272 pp.) — Funny and gross guide to body parts, from dimple to nipple, maw and, uh, beaver.

• Shame in the Blood by Tetsuo Miura (Shoemaker and Hoard, 224 pp.) — Bestselling Japanese novel makes its English debut. A sleepy, contemplative tale of love and redemption, in the vein of Kawabata.

• The Carnivorous Lamb by Agustin Gomez-Arcos (Arsenal Pulp Press, 288 pp.) — The latest entry in the Little Sister’s Classics series, reprinting lost gay lit classics. This tale of a young Spanish man’s coming of age has a few wonderful, dreamy passages, but falls prey to arch, awkward prose (partly due to its overt political allegory of Franco fascism).