The Wordsmith's Forge

 Ingress is a phone game that involves traveling around to control territory, which at least gets people out of their chairs.  It teaches some interesting skills for grassroots organization and cell structure.

 The strawberry squid has two completely different eyes.

Bard Bloom has written a duology, Mating Flight, about dragons -- the protagonist of which is not actually interested in mating, but obligated to do so for reasons of species survival.  It sounds fascinating.