Dean Koontz Invades Virtual World in Bantam Dell Marketing Ploy

By Edward Nawotka

March 15 (Bloomberg) -- Today at 9 p.m. New York time, bestselling thriller writer Dean Koontz will give a virtual reading from his forthcoming novel ``The Good Guy'' (scheduled for publication May 29) at the ``Bantam Dell Book Shop and Cafe'' -- a new virtual destination in Second Life for Bantam Dell Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc.

Second Life is a 3-D online world in which people roam a fictitious but familiar environment in the form of digital avatars -- that is, computer representations that look, walk and misbehave much like real human beings. Since its creation by Linden Lab in 2003, Second Life has attracted more than 4 million users worldwide.

Bantam Dell's virtual bookstore was created by Electric Sheep Co., which has produced Second Life destinations for other companies including AOL, Starwood Hotels and Major League Baseball.

During his reading, Koontz will be represented by an avatar fashioned in his likeness and assisted by a pair of Bantam Dell employee avatars with the literary-sounding names of Beatrice Scintilla and Horatio Ruggles.

Scintilla is actually Betsy Hulsebosch, senior vice president and director of creative marketing for Bantam Dell. She will field audience questions via instant and text messaging and relay them to Koontz, who will answer in his real voice via an audio feed.

Overflow Glitches

Hulsebosch says she hopes that 30 to 40 avatars -- or visitors -- show up, as any more in one Second Life destination can cause computer glitches. To deal with overflow, the event will be simulcast in several other Second Life destinations; an audio feed will be broadcast on Koontz's Web site and on Bantam Dell's.

Those attending will be able to browse almost 100 Bantam Dell titles on shelves, tables and ``dumps'' (those cardboard displays that sit on the floor) in the virtual bookstore. Clicking on a book will take them to a page on Bantam Dell's Web site where they can read an excerpt and, if they wish, buy the book, either from there or from a number of online retailers, including Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Powells.

Publishers have been slow to enter the age of digitized information -- unlike writers and entertainers. The singer- songwriter Suzanne Vega has given a virtual concert in Second Life, and an avatar of Kurt Vonnegut has sat for an interview with a virtual John Hockenberry.

Next Dimension

``We think Second Life represents the next dimension of social networking,'' Hulsebosch says. ``It's three-dimensional. You physically create the world around you. We think the people who are drawn to that sort of experience would also be drawn to books.''

Russ Lawrence, president of the American Booksellers Association and owner of Chapter One Book Store in Hamilton, Montana, is sanguine about the prospect of virtual competition. ``If publishers want growth, they have to look to reach people where they haven't before,'' he says. ``Second Life is itself a fictional environment. Who knows, selling fiction there might be a pretty good match.''

(Edward Nawotka is a critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

Capitalism Goes on Trial, Warren Buffett Eats: New Nonfiction

By Edward Nawotka

March 13 (Bloomberg) -- After 9/11, readers turned to Benjamin R. Barber's 1995 ``Jihad vs. McWorld'' for a better understanding of the world in which they suddenly found themselves. Barber posited a society divided between faith-based tribalists and economic globalists -- opposing forces that both threatened democratic ideals.

Barber's new book, ``Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults and Swallow Citizens Whole'' (Norton, $26.95), offers a scathing critique of late capitalism, blaming run-amok consumerism for the decline of society.

Megacorporations are as much in the business of manufacturing ``needs,'' Barber argues, as of products or services for a population of emotionally stunted consumers.

Why do we buy a raft of inferior and superfluous products? Because these companies have turned us into ``kidults, rejuveniles, twixters, adultescents'' conditioned since birth to buy ``stupid'' brands. The result is a ``civic schizophrenia'' that leaves us vulnerable to megachurches but too disengaged to vote.

``Consumed'' is more vitriolic than admirers of ``Jihad vs. McWorld'' might expect. Some may object to Barber's angry insistence that we, as consumers, have no free will. Although it's great at provoking us to think about our complicity in the phenomenon he describes, a reader may not feel like the total tool of corporate commerce Barber claims we all are.

``Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future'' by Bill McKibben (Times, $25). In a vein similar to Barber's, McKibben offers a clear-eyed reassessment of the meaning of growth, arguing that it's no longer making the world wealthier but instead is ``generating inequality and insecurity'' and ``bumping against physical limits, like climate change and peak oil, so profound that continuing to expand may be impossible or even dangerous.''

``A Weekend With Warren Buffett and Other Shareholder Meeting Adventures'' by Randy Cepuch (Thunder's Mouth, $23.95). Starting with a six-hour marathon Q&A with Buffett in Omaha, Cepuch offers a travelogue of 24 meetings (and free lunches) throughout the U.S., the U.K. and Australia, for such companies as Citigroup, DuPont, eBay, Google, Microsoft, Playboy, Starbucks, Wal-Mart and Walt Disney.

``Jackpot Nation: Rambling and Gambling Across Our Landscape of Luck'' by Richard Hoffer (HarperCollins, $24.95). A Sports Illustrated reporter visits casinos, underground power games and more in a trip through the U.S.'s gaming culture, whose burgeoning condition, he says, is symptomatic of our predilection for get-rich-quick schemes and costs us some $80 billion a year.

``How Countries Compete: Strategy, Structure, and Government in the Global Economy'' by Richard H.K. Vietor (Harvard Business School, $35). A B-school prof examines growth in countries including China, India, Japan, the U.S., Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia and South Africa and challenges the notion that government oversight hinders economic development.

``The Grid: A Journey Through the Heart of Our Electrified World'' by Phillip F. Schewe (J. Henry Press, $27.95). The electrical grid is one of the world's great engineering and industrial feats, but one short circuit could leave cities dark for days. Schewe offers an informative look at the grid's history and its increasing vulnerability.

``The Cigarette Century: The Rise, Fall and Deadly Persistence of the Product That Defined America'' by Allan M. Brandt (Basic, $36). A medical historian examines the role of the tobacco industry in American life, from its contributions to the development of advertising to its role in so many legal and health debates.

``Maxed Out: Hard Times, Easy Credit and the Era of Predatory Lenders'' by James D. Scurlock (Scribner, $24). The credit industry (Visa, MasterCard et al.) is the villain in this frightening if one-sided expose of ``debt hell.''

``Poor People'' by William T. Vollmann (Ecco, $29.95). The prizewinning novelist and crusading (and sometimes gonzo) journalist traverses the world to ask a cross section of the downtrodden, ``Why are you poor?'' and records their honest and unsettling answers.

Didion's Grief, Wal-Mart, Rome, Oil, Obama: February Paperbacks

By Edward Nawotka

Feb. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Joan Didion's National Book Award- winning memoir, ``The Year of Magical Thinking'' (Vintage, $13.95), describes her grief following the sudden death of her husband, the writer John Gregory Dunne.

As a hedge against self-pity, Didion chronicles every detail. Hoping to perform a kind of ``magic trick'' to ``bring him back,'' she refuses to allow his body parts to be harvested or to give away his shoes: ``How could he come back if they took his organs, how could he come back if he had no shoes?''

The book has proved to be her most popular. Some 625,000 copies were printed in hardcover. A stage adaptation, written by Didion, directed by David Hare and starring Vanessa Redgrave, opens on Broadway in March.

Other highlights this month:

``Wal-Mart: The Bully of Bentonville: How the High Cost of Everyday Low Prices Is Hurting America'' by Anthony Bianco (Currency, $14.95). According to the persuasive Bianco, the world's biggest retailer has created a Dickensian workplace culture that turns workers into ``component parts'' as it smashes union activity and violates child-labor laws in pursuit of retail dominance.

``Rome, Inc.: The Rise and Fall of the First Multinational Corporation'' by Stanley Bing (Norton, $14.95). Satirist Bing compresses Roman history into an entertaining business parable that portrays the city-state and its empire as a modern corporation vexed by rapacious and incompetent leaders, disastrous in-fighting and hostile takeover attempts.

``The Coming Economic Collapse: How You Can Thrive When Oil Costs $200 a Barrel'' by Stephen Leeb and Glen Strathy (Back Bay, $16.99). Leeb, the president of Leeb Capital Management, and Strathy, a journalist, view the oil shock and inflation of the 1970s as a template for the future, when growing demand from China and India will force oil prices to skyrocket -- something they think could happen in the next five years.

``New Art City: Manhattan at Mid-Century'' by Jed Perl (Vintage, $18.95). The New Republic's art critic offers a smart disquisition on the influence of a revolutionary coterie that included Jackson Pollock, Hans Hofmann, Joseph Cornell, Robert Rauschenberg and Ellsworth Kelly.

``Hopes and Dreams: The Story of Barack Obama'' by Steve Dougherty (Black Dog & Leventhal, $9.95). At 128 pages it's brief, but so is the career of the junior senator from Illinois and Democratic presidential hopeful.

``Falling Through the Earth'' by Danielle Trussoni (Picador, $14). Trussoni's troubled Wisconsin childhood and her attempts to win respect from her alcoholic Vietnam-vet father inform her tough-minded, moving memoir.

``Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln's Killer'' by James L. Swanson (HarperPerennial, $15.95). As the latest of myriad authors who have written about the hunt for John Wilkes Booth, Swanson distills the surfeit of information into an urgent narrative that offers only the most riveting (and gory) details.

``Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change From Hawaii to Iraq'' by Stephen Kinzer (Times, $15). How many governments has the U.S. overthrown? Fourteen, answers New York Times foreign correspondent Kinzer in this critical survey of strong-arm American diplomacy. Hawaii was the first, Iraq the last -- for now.

``Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping'' by Judith Levine (Free Press, $14). Levine's can-do attitude buoys her chronicle of a year-long experiment in forgoing luxuries (Q-tips, restaurants, video rentals), which also explores the anti- consumer movement.

``Black Swan Green'' by David Mitchell (Random House, $13.95). The challenging British novelist has set his rough-and- tumble coming-of-age story in Worcestershire, England, in 1982, where his 13-year-old narrator copes with a stammer, confronts bullies and follows the Falklands War.

``Labyrinth'' by Kate Mosse (Berkley, $15). In Mosse's fat page-turner, a pair of women separated by 800 years -- contemporary Alice and medieval Alais -- run from Christian villains eager to thwart their search for the object of desire in several recent thrillers: the Holy Grail.

(Edward Nawotka is a critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

Smiley's Hollywood, Farah's Somalia, Huck's Pap: New Fiction

By Edward Nawotka

Feb. 1 (Bloomberg) -- A post-Oscars gathering at a famous director's house turns into a marathon conversation about the ambitions and neuroses of the Hollywood elite in Jane Smiley's loquacious new novel ``Ten Days in the Hills'' (Knopf, $26).

Smiley's 1991 Pulitzer Prize winner, ``A Thousand Acres,'' was a modern reimagining of ``King Lear.'' This time she takes Boccaccio's ``Decameron'' as her template.

Ten voices interweave into a cacophony of self-obsession as the host and his guests -- including a writer, an actor, hangers- on and offspring -- watch movies in the screening room, yack endlessly about Hollywood, debate the just-launched war in Iraq and dream aloud. One even considers making a pornographic version of ``My Dinner With Andre.''

Some readers may find the characters pretentious and exasperating, but Smiley's bracing candor about desire, both personal and professional, is engrossing.

Other highlights this month:

``Knots'' by Nuruddin Farah (Riverhead, $25.95). The latest novel from the acclaimed Somali writer vividly tells the story of Cambara, who has emigrated to Canada but returns to Mogadishu to mourn the death of her son. In her war-ravaged homeland she finds succor among women peace activists, who, paradoxically, help her enlist mercenaries to reclaim her family home from a vicious warlord.

``Finn'' by Jon Clinch (Random House, $23.95). In ``The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,'' when Pap, Huck's father, is found dead he's surrounded by a strange assortment of odds and ends, among them a wooden leg, two black cloth masks and some ``women's underclothes.'' Clinch's intriguing aim in his debut novel is to explain the mystery by imagining the drunken old man's childhood and family.

``Red Cat'' by Peter Spiegelman (Knopf, $22.95). In Spiegelman's newest thriller (after ``Black Maps,'' a Shamus Award winner, and ``Death's Little Helpers''), New York City private investigator John March, the black-sheep scion of a banking family, makes his third appearance. This time he's coming to the aid of his rich, arrogant brother, who's being threatened by a predatory Internet connection he made the mistake of sleeping with. Spiegleman's pointed riffs on banking and investment schemes are part of the pleasure.

``Lost City Radio'' by Daniel Alarcon (HarperCollins, $24.95). Alarcon's previous book, ``War by Candlelight,'' was a finalist for the 2006 PEN/Hemingway Award. His new novel is worthy of comparison to Graham Greene. Its central character is a woman in a fictional South American country who uses her popular radio program to connect people with loved ones ``disappeared'' during a civil war and who gets a tip that sends her on a quest to find her own lost husband.

``The Other Side of You'' by Salley Vickers (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $24). Vickers, a former psychologist, delivers a graceful, cerebral novel in the form of a ping-pong therapy session. The psychoanalyst has been traumatized by the childhood death of his brother; his suicidal patient has been traumatized by the death of her Caravaggio-obsessed lover.

``Devotion'' by Howard Norman (Houghton Mifflin, $24). In this powerful study of love and marriage by the highly regarded author of ``The Bird Artist,'' a Canadian father and his new son- in-law come to blows outside a London hotel. But is it solely because the young husband has been unfaithful on his honeymoon -- or is there reason for an even deeper distrust between the men?

``Valentine: A Love Story'' by Chet Raymo (Cowley Publications, $19.95). Raymo, best known for his popular science books, returns to fiction for the first time since 1993's ``The Dork of Cork'' with an entrancing life of the martyr St. Valentine, set against the foment of the early Christian church. After the death of his powerful patron's son, Valentine, a Roman doctor, is sent to prison, where he falls in love with the beautiful blind daughter of his jailer.

``The Time It Takes to Fall'' by Margaret Lazarus Dean (Simon & Schuster, $24) Dean's colorful coming-of-age novel views the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster through the eyes of a space-obsessed young girl, who's embroiled in her own parents' complicated lives in the NASA community at Florida's Cape Canaveral.

``Jamestown'' by Matthew Sharpe (Soft Skull Press, $25). With Brooklyn at war and Manhattan inhospitable, refugees flee on buses to Virginia in an ingenious post-apocalyptic satire that pits the natives (whose skin has turned red from their SPF 90 sunblock) against the unprepared interlopers. Much of the book is narrated in hilarious riffs by a trippy Pocahontas.

(Edward Nawotka is a critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

Oil, Nixon and Mao, Soulful Economists: February Nonfiction

By Edward Nawotka

Jan. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Americans make 16 billion trips to the gas station and pump an average of 1,068 gallons per capita annually. Yet few of us understand the economic, political and cultural ramifications of such rampant consumption, Lisa Margonelli observes in ``Oil on the Brain: Adventures From the Pump to the Pipeline'' (Doubleday, $26).

After watching an Alaskan chemist use napalm to clean up an oil slick, Margonelli sets off on a 100,000-mile trek -- burning some 3,000 gallons of gas and jet fuel, she dutifully reports -- to explore ``petroleum culture'' and the global oil-supply chain.

Her chatty combination of reportage and travelogue serves up some fascinating facts: For example, China's booming car sales have resulted in traffic fatalities equivalent to ``a daily 747 crash.''

Other highlights this month:

``Radicals for Capitalism: A Freewheeling History of the Modern American Libertarian Movement'' by Brian Doherty (PublicAffairs, $35). Doherty, an editor at Reason magazine, offers an astute, entertaining history of thinkers as diverse as Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman, who both believed that the best government was the one that involved itself least in the life of its citizens.

``The Soulful Science: What Economists Really Do and Why It Matters'' by Diane Coyle (Princeton, $27.95). Countering Thomas Carlyle's description of economics as the dismal science, Coyle shows how contemporary economists are bringing theory out of the classroom as they adopt a more pragmatic, humanistic approach to such problems as poverty and pollution.

``The Unwritten Laws of Business'' by W.J. King and James G. Skakoon (Currency, $14.95). This revised edition of the 60-year- old business primer ``The Unwritten Laws of Engineering'' (which helped inspire Raytheon CEO William Swanson's popular self- published pamphlet ``Swanson's Unwritten Rules of Management'') is full of aphoristic advice -- for example, ``If you have no intention of listening to, considering, and perhaps using, someone's opinion, don't ask for it.''

``Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic'' by Chalmers Johnson (Metropolitan, $25). Following his bestselling ``Blowback'' and ``The Sorrows of Empire,'' Johnson powerfully demonstrates how the United States' costly attempts to install democracy abroad (too often with security as the real goal) have lured it into a permanent war economy that threatens to undermine the Constitution and bankrupt the nation.

``Nixon and Mao: The Week That Changed the World'' by Margaret MacMillan (Random House, $27.95). The bestselling author of ``Paris 1919'' offers a fascinating look at the events surrounding that historic handshake of February 1972 and the important roles that Henry Kissinger, Pat Nixon, Chou En-lai and Jiang Qing also played.

``Gerald R. Ford'' by Douglas Brinkley (Times Books, $20). Ford, who died on Dec. 26, is largely remembered as the man unwittingly thrust into the presidency. Brinkley recounts key episodes in his brief tenure, most notably the signing of the Helsinki Accords, which, the author maintains, laid the groundwork for the end of the Cold War.

``The China Fantasy: How Our Leaders Explain Away Chinese Repression'' by James Mann (Viking, $19.95). Mann, a former Beijing bureau chief of the Los Angeles Times and the author of ``Rise of the Vulcans,'' shows why China's deeply embedded authoritarian culture is likely to persist despite the West's mistaken belief that economic reforms will inevitably lead to a humanistic democracy (``the soothing scenario'') or else revolution (``the upheaval scenario'').

``Planet India: How the Rise of the Fastest-Growing Democracy Is Transforming America and the World'' by Mira Kamdar. (Scribner, $26). Kamdar, a senior fellow at the World Policy Institute, weighs in on the Indian companies that have marshaled technology to transform the country into an economic dynamo that now imperils the West's economic and cultural hegemony.

(Edward Nawotka is a critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

After Frey Debacle, Oprah Picks Poitier Book for Club

By Edward Nawotka

Jan. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Oprah Winfrey chose Sidney Poitier's ``The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography'' (HarperSanFrancisco, $14.95 paperback) as the next pick for her television book club. The choice is all but certain to turn the memoir into a bestseller.

``Measure'' is the first title Oprah has given her seal of approval to since James Frey's memoir, ``A Million Little Pieces,'' was exposed as partially fabricated and caused Winfrey considerable embarrassment. Oprah's Book Club has been a major boon to the publishing industry; her imprimatur on a title means gold at the checkout counter.

Originally published in September 2000, ``The Measure of a Man'' is Poitier's second memoir and recounts his rise from an impoverished childhood on Cat Island in the Bahamas to his Oscar-winning film career. The book includes meditations on integrity, commitment, faith and forgiveness and finding meaningful pleasures in life. The book sold 125,000 hardcovers and paperbacks in its first run, according to the publisher.

Winfrey was chastened when the Smoking Gun Web site revealed that Frey had faked significant portions of ``A Million Little Pieces,'' a book she heavily promoted through her club and initially defended. That book had gone on to sell some 1.7 million copies following her imprimatur and in excess of three million copies in all.

Despite the scandal, Winfrey still managed to turn a revised edition of Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel's Holocaust memoir ``Night'' into a million-copy bestseller.

Inspirational Story

Mark Tauber, vice president and deputy publisher of HarperSanFrancisco, called Poitier's memoir ``a great inspirational story about an authentic life.

``Oprah loves these kinds of stories,'' he added in a telephone interview today, ``and she's never been shy about saying how much he's been important to her career. It makes a lot of sense.''

Until the debacle, Oprah's Book Club had become the nation's premier venue for promoting books. Begun on Sept. 19, 1996, with the selection of Jacquelyn Mitchard's novel ``The Deep End of the Ocean,'' a Winfrey endorsement has nearly always prompted a dramatic boost in a title's sales.

14-Month Hiatus

Tauber anticipates the same will hold for Poitier's book. ``The Measure of a Man'' sold 75,000 copies in hardcover, landing briefly on the New York Times bestseller list in 2000, and an additional 50,000 copies in paperback.

Though Tauber wouldn't reveal specific numbers, he said, ``it's safe to say that we're printing several hundred thousand new paperbacks.'' He reports that pre-sales of the book, which has already been delivered to bookstores and will be on sale today, have been strong.

In 2001, author Jonathan Franzen voiced his discomfort with the ``Oprah's Book Club'' sticker affixed to his novel ``The Corrections.'' Franzen was dropped from Winfrey's show for his perceived snobbery; he later acknowledged her in his acceptance speech at the National Book Awards. She'd probably made him a bestselling author, too.

After a 14-month hiatus from selecting books between April 2002 and June 2003, Oprah shifted the focus of her club from choosing works by contemporary authors to promoting classic novels. The first, John Steinbeck's ``East of Eden,'' sold in excess of 1.6 million copies. Subsequent choices fell off a bit. Yet even missteps can account for significant sales.

The final selection of the classics club, a three-volume, $29.95 box set of William Faulkner's ``As I Lay Dying,'' ``The Sound and the Fury'' and ``Light in August'' was perceived as too daunting for many but still sold in excess of a half million units.

Including today's selection, Winfrey has picked 58 titles in all for her club, making instant millionaires of some the authors.

Children's Book Prizes Go to Small-Town Quest, Surreal Pictures

By Edward Nawotka

Jan. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Susan Patron's children's novel ``The Higher Power of Lucky'' (Atheneum/Richard Jackson Books) won the John Newbery Medal, while David Wiesner's illustrated book ``Flotsam'' (Clarion) took home the Randolph Caldecott Medal at an awards ceremony hosted in Seattle today by the American Library Association.

The prizes, which date from 1922 and 1938 respectively, are among the most prestigious in children's book publishing.

Patron's novel portrays the adventures of Lucky, a motherless 10-year-old who quests for a ``higher power'' among the quirky citizens and 12-step programs of the tiny desert town of Hard Pan, California, where she is looked after by her father's ex-wife, a Frenchwoman seemingly more interested in her on-line restaurant-management course than in caring for Lucky.

Wiesner has twice won the Caldecott Medal, first in 1992 for ``Tuesday'' and again in 2002 for his re-imagining of ``The Three Pigs.'' His ``Flotsam'' is a gorgeous, wordless depiction of a young beachcomber who finds the barnacle-encrusted Melville Underwater Camera. The camera is filled with astonishing photos of a strange undersea world, including a puffer fish rigged as a hot-air balloon and an intricate mechanical sea creature.

Closer examination with a magnifying glass and microscope reveals self-portraits of other children who have stumbled upon the camera, one dating back to the early 20th century.

In addition to the Newbery and Caldecott Medals, the ALA awards various other prizes for children's books. The Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal for nonfiction went to ``Team Moon: How 400,000 People Landed Apollo 11 on the Moon'' by Catherine Thimmesh (Houghton Mifflin).

The Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature was given to ``American Born Chinese'' by Gene Luen Yang (Roaring Brook Press), the story of a child's alienation at school and the first graphic novel to be honored with the prize.

(Edward Nawotka is a critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer on this story: Edward Nawotka at ink@edwardn.com .

Eat Everything, Play Golf, Talk to Snails: Lifestyle Books

By Edward Nawotka

Jan. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Dismissing most food experts as cranks, sociologist Barry Glassner reasons that since scientists, nutritionists and dietitians can't make up their minds about what foods are good for you and what foods aren't, you might as well eat what you want.

In his convincing ``The Gospel of Food: Everything You Think You Know About Food Is Wrong'' (Ecco, $25.95), Glassner looks at conflicting myths about food, such as the suggested health benefits of the Atkins diet and the purported deadliness of eggs and hot dogs.

Glassner decries those who preach ``the gospel of naught,'' the idea that ``the worth of a meal lies principally in what it lacks.'' He thinks America's obesity epidemic has been exaggerated, in part by a food industry eager to sell higher- priced ``natural'' products, many of which have no more nutritional value than processed foods.

The right path, he says, is to learn to take genuine pleasure from your meals. You'll be happier, which in and of itself will make you healthier.

Other highlights this month:

``Emerald Fairways and Foam-Flecked Seas: A Golfer's Pilgrimage to the Courses of Ireland'' by James W. Finegan (Simon & Schuster, $14). A golfer's dream book, this revised edition of Finegan's 1996 travelogue and guide covers nearly all the country's famed courses -- from new challenges, such as Druid's Heath (a ``thrilling, scenic, unyielding'' 7,450-yard par 71 outside Dublin) to classics like Ballybunion's outstanding links (one of Bill Clinton's favorite courses).

``Money Changes Everything: Twenty-Two Writers Tackle the Last Taboo With Tales of Sudden Windfalls, Staggering Debts and Other Surprising Turns'' edited by Jenny Offill and Elissa Schappell (Doubleday, $24.95). Among the essays in this intriguing anthology are pieces by a Sept. 11 widow who discusses her conflicted feelings about the compensation she received for her husband's death, by an heiress who struggles with ``affluenza'' and by a married couple who nearly divorced over the family finances.

``The Curtain: An Essay in Seven Parts'' by Milan Kundera (HarperCollins, $22.95). The acclaimed Czech author of ``The Unbearable Lightness of Being'' summarizes his notions of what makes a great novel and addresses the novel's role in Western Civilization -- where, he argues, fiction has helped create a shared experience that transcends languages and nationalities.

``The Lady in the Palazzo'' by Marlena de Blasi (Algonquin, $23.95). The cookbook writer does for Umbria what Frances Mayes did for Tuscany in this memoir about renovating the ballroom of a medieval palazzo in the heart of Orvieto. As prescribed by the genre, the undertaking doesn't go as planned, but eventually she wins over her eccentric, suspicious neighbors with her food and charm.

``Alternadad'' by Neal Pollack (Pantheon, $23.95). If you think being the parent of a young child might cramp your style, think again, says Pollock in this funny and vulgar memoir of trying to mold his toddler, Elijah, into a Ramones-loving little hipster -- a mirror image of himself -- while avoiding the ire of his too tolerant wife.

``Fame Junkies: The Hidden Truths Behind America's Favorite Addiction'' by Jake Halpern (Houghton Mifflin, $23). This breezy, intriguing book casts a cold eye on the culture of celebrity -- the aspiring stars of reality television shows, the personal assistants and entourages who bask in reflected glory and the kingmakers at celebrity-obsessed magazines like US Weekly.

``Talk to the Snail: Ten Commandments for Understanding the French'' by Stephen Clarke (Bloomsbury, $14.95). A witty, tongue- in-cheek demystification of such enigmas as why French waiters are rude and why French workers are always going on strike. Clarke also offers his hard-won advice on seducing French women and on speaking French, if need be, so as to be polite and cutting at the same time.

(Edward Nawotka is a critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer on this story: Edward Nawotka at ink@edwardn.com .

Starbucks Follows Albom Bestseller With War Memoir by Soldier

By Edward Nawotka

Jan. 11 (Bloomberg) -- After selling more than 92,000 copies of Mitch Albom's bestseller ``For One More Day,'' Starbucks has changed course and chosen an African war memoir by an unknown, 25-year-old writer as its second venture into book sales, the company announced yesterday.

The book is ``A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier'' (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $22) by Ishmael Beah, a onetime child soldier in Sierra Leone. The book is scheduled to go on general sale Feb. 13 and at Starbucks cafes two days later. It chronicles Beah's journey from the drug-ravaged battlefields of West Africa, where he started fighting as a hip-hop happy 13-year-old, to his reintroduction to civilian life with the help of Unicef and his eventual expatriation to the U.S., where he graduated from Oberlin College in 2004.

It's a daring selection for a company that had little to do with the book business before last year, when Starbucks began retailing Albom's frothy novel about a suicidal, alcoholic man seeking reconciliation with the ghost of his dead mother. With some 6,000 U.S. outlets, Starbucks proved an able bookseller, helping to make ``For One More Day'' a bestseller. Of course, that book was virtually a guaranteed hit: Albom already had sold some 6 million copies of his previous novel, ``The Five People You Meet in Heaven,'' and had a well-established audience.

44 Million Customers

Will the 44 million customers who enter a Starbucks store each week want to cozy up to a story full of grim details of African poverty, deprivation and gore while sipping their $4 Grande lattes? Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz thinks so.

``This is one of the most gripping books I have ever read,'' Schultz said in a prepared statement. ``We were all inspired by this tale of determination and hope and knew it was an important book to share with our customers.''

While Beah's memoir may appear to be a departure from Albom's saccharine fare, it does share a theme of redemption and rescue. Moreover, readers are not inured to such tales; ``Beasts of No Nation,'' Uzodinma Iweala's 2005 novel about a similar child soldier, with its brutal depictions of African warfare, won the 2006 New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award.

The biggest risk in this venture is being taken on by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, a modest-size literary publishing house and subsidiary of Holtzbrinck Publishers LLC. Farrar plans a printing far in excess of the typical first run of 10,000 to 15,000 copies of a memoir by an unknown, first-time writer just to deliver adequate stock to every Starbucks outlet. If the book fails, the result may hit them hard.

Nevertheless, Starbucks appears confident. The company plans to donate $2 for every copy of ``A Long Way Gone'' sold at Starbucks to the U.S. fund for Unicef. With the announced minimum donation being $100,000, it would appear the company anticipates it will sell at least 50,000 copies of the book.

(Edward Nawotka is a critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

Clever Econ, Vonnegut vs. Bush, Hershey Empire: New Paperbacks

By Edward Nawotka

Jan. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Your typical street thug can expect to be shot twice, arrested six times and have a one in four chance of being killed, in exchange for an average wage of less than $10 an hour.

An altogether better idea, writes Tim Harford in his fascinating book ``The Undercover Economist: Exposing Why the Rich Are Rich, Why the Poor Are Poor -- and Why You Can Never Buy a Decent Used Car!'' (Random House), would be to join a crime syndicate. Organized crime tends to eschew casual violence, and by involving itself in legitimate businesses is a more sustainable and, consequently, more profitable proposition.

The ``Dear Economist'' columnist for the Financial Times, Harford applies Economics 101 concepts of supply and demand, and competition and efficiency, to explain the economics of everyday life and, among other things, how buying coffee from Starbucks increases U.S. imports, which consequently affects the trade deficit, potentially leading to long-term interest-rate increases, which may jeopardize economic growth.

Much like Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner's popular ``Freakonomics,'' Harford manages to simultaneously entertain as well as edify with a string of ``who knew?'' revelations.

Other highlights this month include:

``Arthur & George'' by Julian Barnes (Vintage). The acclaimed English writer's most recent book is one of his best: The fictionalization of a true-life case in which author Arthur Conan Doyle rose to the defense of George Edalji, a half Scots, half-Indian lawyer wrongfully convicted of terrorizing his local farm community by writing obscene letters and mutilating cattle.

``A Man Without a Country'' by Kurt Vonnegut (Random House). Octogenarian Vonnegut has made no secret of his disdain for the Bush administration and puts his ire on full display in this pithy collection of essays from the past five years, which covers the war in Iraq, creative writing, socialist presidential candidate Eugene Debs and myriad other personal enthusiasms and irritants.

``Hershey: Milton S. Hershey's Extraordinary Life of Wealth, Empire, and Utopian Dreams'' by Michael D'Antonio (Simon & Schuster). This page-turning biography of Hershey describes a benevolent corporate dictator who built his chocolate empire, Hershey Co., but found his business triumph tempered by personal tragedy.

``The Flight of the Creative Class'' by Richard Florida (HarperCollins). Florida, an economist and author of the bestseller ``The Rise of the Creative Class'' looks at why skilled workers such as financial managers and software programmers are leaving the U.S. for better paid jobs abroad and what this implies for the future of American business.

``Strapped: Why America's 20- and 30-Somethings Can't Get Ahead'' by Tamara Draut (Anchor). A bracing look at the economic challenges young professionals face when entering the job market and establishing careers, from paying back crippling student loans to becoming unwilling cannon fodder in generational war against their experienced, entrenched elders.

``At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68'' by Taylor Branch (Simon & Schuster). The concluding volume in Branch's magisterial trilogy documenting the civil rights movement begins with an account of the 1965 Selma marches, covers the passage of the Voting Rights Act and concludes with the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King.

``The Diviners'' by Rick Moody (Back Bay). This half-baked satire from the author of ``The Ice Storm'' depicts a cadre of ambitious Hollywood hopefuls trying to attach themselves to a treatment for a 13-part miniseries that tracks a group of water dowsers from ancient to modern times, even after it's proven to be merely a piece of authorless, buzz-worthy nonsense.

``Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia'' by Elizabeth Gilbert (Penguin). Gilbert's charming, if self-indulgent, chronicle of a post- divorce, soul-searching sojourn describes how she got fat, meditated and once again fell in love.

``Apex Hides the Hurt'' by Colson Whitehead (Anchor). One of the country's most talented young novelists, Whitehead offers an engaging, albeit minor, work about a down-on-his-luck brand consultant beckoned to a rural Midwestern town in order to give it a new name: Will it be New Prospera, which reflects the town's ambition to become a hi-tech haven, or something that harks back to its origins as a utopia for freed slaves?

(Edward Nawotka is a critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

Mailer's Hitler, Clarke's Thriller, Amis's Gulag: New Fiction

By Edward Nawotka

Jan. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Norman Mailer, the 83-year-old colossus of American letters, returns this month with his first novel in more than a decade: ``The Castle in the Forest'' (Random House, $26.95), a fictional account of Adolf Hitler's youth as filtered through a Freudian lens.

Narrated by Dieter, one of Satan's minions who serves as Hitler's supernatural mentor, it is a bilious journey through the Fuhrer's first 13 years, one that begins with the moment of Hitler's violent conception by his creepy, incestuous parents. It lingers voyeuristically on infant Adolf's bodily functions, his parents' grim relationship and episodes of youthful wickedness.

The book may not be as epic as ``The Executioner's Song'' or ``Harlot's Ghost,'' but it is as provocative and nearly as brilliant -- a perfect bookend to his 1997 ``The Gospel According to the Son,'' which portrayed Jesus as a confused young man guided by voices.

Dieter, who counsels the Fuhrer throughout World War II while disguised as an SS intelligence officer, reminds the reader, ``Saintliness is present in everyone, even among the worst of the worst.'' It's a bit doubtful in this case.

Other highlights this month:

``House of Meetings'' by Martin Amis (Knopf, $23). Amis wrote openly about his disgust with Stalinist Russia in his 2002 memoir ``Koba the Dread.'' He revisits the subject in this novel about a wealthy octogenarian Russian expat touring the Gulags, where he and his brother were imprisoned for 14 years, and reminiscing about their shared love for a once-vivacious Jewish woman.

``Surveillance'' by Jonathan Raban (Pantheon, $24). Raban's timely disquisition on the fragility of truth and identity in the information age stars a Seattle magazine writer who discovers a bestselling memoir is a fake, while, in the background, a frenzied Department of Homeland Security is taking dishonorable, drastic measures to protect the country from terrorism.

``Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name'' by Vendela Vida (Ecco, $23.95). Like Vida's first novel (2003's ``And Now You Can Go'') this is the story of a seemingly insensate young woman whose life becomes unmoored: After the man she believed to be her father dies, 28-year-old Clarissa leaves her fiance and journeys to the Arctic to search for her real father among the Sami people of Lapland.

``Exit A'' by Anthony Swofford (Scribner, $25). The former sniper who penned the superb Desert Storm memoir ``Jarhead'' takes his first shot at fiction in this uneven but compelling thriller about an army brat living at Yokota Air Base near Tokyo and his criminally minded girlfriend -- the daughter of the base commander -- who repeatedly lures him into the Japanese underworld.

``Ice'' by Vladimir Sorokin (New York Review Books, $23.95). This trippy satire from one of Russia's most talented writers depicts the lives of three recruits to a bizarre religious sect: the ``heart speakers'' who beat acolytes with ice-covered hammers and seek spiritual salvation through orgasm.

``Travels in the Scriptorium'' by Paul Auster (Holt, $22). A slim, self-referential meta-fiction -- more a hall of rumors than a novel -- in which a puzzled elderly man sitting in a room discovers a manuscript called ``Travels in the Scriptorium,'' itself the story of a similar elderly man sitting in a room, written by a character who long ago disappeared from Auster's debut work, ``The New York Trilogy.''

``Skylight Confessions'' by Alice Hoffman (Little, Brown, $24.99)) In Hoffman's new magic-realist ghost story, a girl loses both of her parents and vows to marry the first man she meets, who turns out to be a -- a chilly Yalie living in his parents' glass and steel house. She bears him a son and dies when the boy is young, only to return to haunt the callous father.

``Returning to Earth'' by Jim Harrison (Grove, $24). Harrison's meditative novel uses four narrators to recount the death from Lou Gehrig's disease of a 45-year-old Chippewa-Finnish man and its impact on his family, some of whom find solace in the Chippewa belief that his spirit has returned to earth to inhabit a bear.

``Breakpoint'' by Richard A. Clarke (Putnam, $25.95). Former U.S. counterterrorism czar delivers a convoluted techno-thriller set in 2012, portraying terrorist attacks on U.S. communications networks systems to cripple the development of ``Living Software'' -- a self-perpetuating virtual computer program designed to police cyberspace -- and distract from an even more insidious plot.

``Charity Girl'' by Michael Lowenthal (Houghton Mifflin, $24). Lowenthal uses a villainous episode in American history -- the WWI-era internment of some 30,000 women thought to have venereal diseases -- as the basis for this story of a young Jewish girl in Boston who flees an arranged marriage into the arms of an infected soldier, is imprisoned and finds salvation in feminism and rebellion.

$35 Billion Giveaway, Friedman Bio, Pepsi: January Nonfiction

By Edward Nawotka

Jan. 3 (Bloomberg) -- In 2007 America's 68,000 philanthropic foundations are expected to give away $35 billion. Yet they are among the least accountable institutions at work in the economy and little is known about the decision-making of the trustees responsible for so much cash.

In ``The Foundation: A Great American Secret'' (PublicAffairs, $27.95), subtitled ``How Private Wealth Is Changing the World,'' Duke University professor Joel L. Fleishman penetrates this opaque culture. His central question is: Considering the tremendous tax breaks afforded charitable donations to foundations, amounting to nearly $20 billion in lost tax revenue per year, is the public getting its money's worth?

Fleishman surveys nearly 100 different foundation-funded projects and offers a dozen detailed case studies. He comes away believing foundations represent the best opportunity for creating an ``independent, multi-power-center society.''

Fleishman finds that foundations generally spend their money responsibly, though all too often they lack an adequate strategy to achieve their lofty goals. They also come up short on accountability and don't communicate well and, as a consequence, are viewed as arrogant and aloof.

Other highlights this month include:

``Boeing Versus Airbus: The Inside Story of the Greatest International Competition in Business'' by John Newhouse (Knopf, $26.95). A blow-by-blow account of the evolution of the two giants of the modern airliner industry and their seesawing fortunes in the international market after years of mismanagement.

``Milton Friedman: A Biography'' by Lanny Ebenstein (Palgrave Macmillan, $27.95). The first full-length biography of the Nobel Prize winner who died in November is a surprisingly readable, succinct portrait of the combative economist. It tracks his development, from his early years as a Keynes-influenced theorist to his transformation into a champion of laissez-faire capitalism.

``On the Wealth of Nations'' by P.J. O'Rourke (Atlantic Monthly, $21.95). The satirist rereads Adam Smith's thumb sucker on economic theory ``so you don't have to'' and concludes he's still relevant in the age of outsourcing and the service economy. Long stretches, however, read like ``Modern Maturity in Urdu.''

``The Real Pepsi Challenge: The Inspirational Story of Breaking the Color Barrier in American Business'' by Stephanie Capparell (Free Press, $25). A chronicle of how in the late 1940s and 50s Pepsi became one of the first major American corporations to hire black executives. The company started recruiting African- American salesmen to push their cola to the African-American market in an effort to outmaneuver Coke, the dominant company with ties to Georgia's racist political machine.

``Fighting for Air: The Battle to Control America's Media'' by Eric Klinenberg (Metropolitan Books, $26). As conglomerates subsume the majority of local radio and television stations, stockholders may cheer but the general public suffers, says Klinenberg, in this argumentative examination of the aftermath of media deregulation and the subsequent consolidation.

``Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die'' by Chip Heath and Dan Heath (Random House, $24.95). Fans of counterintuitive business books, such as ``Freakonomics'' and ``The Tipping Point,'' will enjoy this entertaining new volume that uses urban legends and bogus public health scares to explain why some stories and ideas are more memorable than others, especially when used in advertising, sales and employee development.

``A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder; How Crammed Closets, Cluttered Offices, and On-the-Fly Planning Make the World a Better Place'' by Eric Abrahamson and David H. Freedman. (Little, Brown, $25.99). Another counterintuitive tome in which a Columbia University B-school professor and a journalist argue against the organization gurus who assert that tight governance makes for best practice. Instead, they encourage a freewheeling approach they assert will result in more creativity and serendipitous innovation.

``The Supreme Court: The Personalities and Rivalries That Defined America'' by Jeffrey Rosen (Times Books, $25.95). The legal affairs editor at the New Republic examines how four pairs of men -- sometimes working at cross-purposes -- transformed the law of the land: John Marshall and Thomas Jefferson; Oliver Wendell Holmes and John Marshall Harlan; Hugo Black and William O. Douglas; and Antonin Scalia and William Rehnquist.

``Halsey's Typhoon: The True Story of a Fighting Admiral, an Epic Storm, and an Untold Rescue'' by Bob Drury and Tom Clavin (Atlantic Monthly, $35). This harrowing disaster tale describes how Admiral ``Bull'' Halsey and the U.S. Pacific fleet lost three destroyers and nearly 800 men in 1944, not to Japanese dive bombers but to Typhoon Cobra, a storm that produced 90-foot waves and 150-mph winds.

Former Top Trader Fossett an Adventurer But Not a Daredevil

By Edward Nawotka

Dec. 26 (Bloomberg) -- What's your New Year's resolution? Steve Fossett says he intends to break the absolute land-speed record in 2007.

The 62-year-old, who made his fortune trading options and securities, is already the first person to fly solo nonstop around the world in an airplane and the first to circumnavigate the globe alone in a balloon. He has swum the English Channel, finished the Iditarod, sailed across the Pacific Ocean single- handedly and holds 115 world records in five different sports.

Despite all this, he still refuses to bungee-jump.

``When people do that, they want to free-fall and have the living daylights scared out of them,'' Fossett says. ``I'm not a thrill seeker. I don't enjoy getting scared.''

On Dec. 15, the National Aviation Hall of Fame announced that it would induct Fossett, along with four others, including Frederick W. Smith, the founder of FedEx, and space shuttle astronaut Sally Ride, first American woman in space.

Fossett's personal philosophy of risk and reward is elaborated in his recent memoir, ``Chasing the Wind: The Autobiography of Steve Fossett'' (Virgin Books).

I spoke with Fossett by phone from his home in Monterey, California.

Nawotka: How does becoming an author rate in difficulty against your other achievements?

Fossett: People have been asking me to write a book for a long time. It was a daunting task that took two years and covers the most important projects that I've been involved in and recounts some of the best stories. I accomplished an awful lot in business, but it's not polite to talk about how much money you make, so the story is not as interesting to tell. It's a lot more fun to share an experience, which is what I do here.

Dangerous Projects

Nawotka: Do you see any corollary between your business career and pursuit of world records?

Fossett: The management skills I developed in trading have enabled me to accomplish what I have. It was a logical progression. I came from a business where I was managing people and trying to control risk. The kinds of projects I undertake are dangerous and require a strong team. I haven't done these things with any extraordinary talent or ability. I'm very well organized and know how to set goals. What really differentiates me is aspiration. I'm surprised we don't see more businessmen taking more high-risk adventures -- they have all the necessary skills.

Around Ireland

Nawotka: You describe your first record, the speed record for circumnavigating Ireland in a sailboat, as almost accidental.

Fossett: In 1993, I just happened to have one of the fastest sailboats in the world at the time. I was there to participate in another race, but then I saw an ideal weather pattern where I could follow the winds circulating around the coast of Ireland and challenge the record. So I went for it. The previous record was 75 hours, but I was able to do the entire 704-mile circumference in 44 hours.

Nawotka: A relatively small number of people fly planes or balloons, but the absolute world land-speed record is set by driving, something nearly everyone knows how to do. Do you anticipate this record attempt will generate even more interest, especially in America, where people take pride in big, fast cars?

Auto Love

Fossett: True, this record reflects on our American love for driving cars fast, and while I think it's wonderful that the public follows what I'm doing -- and I hope they receive some motivation -- I'm not doing it for publicity. The absolute land speed record is one of the most prominent of all world records and goes back to the start of the car. The British have held the record since 1983 and have been more important to the sport, but it would be very good for an American to come back and capture this record.

Nawotka: The record is 763 miles per hour, and you're shooting for 800. What's the fastest you've ever driven?

Fossett: I went 298 miles per hour out on the Bonneville Salt Flats in a car with a four cylinder Saturn engine.

Nawotka: Surely, you'll need something with a little more muscle to break the record?

Fighter-Jet Engine

Fossett: I have seven people working on a car with me, including Craig Breedlove, who originally drove 600 miles per hour, and an aerodynamicist. The car utilizes a fighter-jet engine and relies on something between airplane aerodynamics and ground effects to cope with moving through the transonic speed range. It takes some very good technology to break that record and live to talk about it.

Sony Reader, Nude Tourists, Machiavelli, Football: Gift Books

By Edward Nawotka

Dec. 20 (Bloomberg) -- If you're anything like me, you still have a few people left on your holiday gift list. These suggestions should make last-minute shopping less stressful.

One of the most exciting book gifts of the year isn't a book at all: it's the Sony Reader, a device for reading digital books that resembles a slim, leather-bound paperback. It is the same size and weight as a small book, has a surprisingly bright and easy-to-read screen, and holds hundreds of books in its memory. At $350 it's not cheap, but it's the first digital reader that actually feels like a book.

Nick Hornby's ``Housekeeping Vs. the Dirt'' (McSweeney's, $14) is the second collection -- after 2004's ``The Polysyllabic Spree'' -- of the popular novelist's columns from the Believer magazine on the subject of his leisure reading. Each brief, humorous essay starts off with a list of ``Books Bought'' and ``Books Read,'' of which the former almost always exceeds the latter.

Lawrence Osborne's ``The Naked Tourist: In Search of Adventure and Beauty in the Age of the Airport Mall'' (North Point Press, $24) is perfect for the jetsetter afflicted with wanderlust. An acerbic, witty account of the author's journey from opulent Dubai through Asia to visit a remote tribe in Papua New Guinea, the book tries to answer the question: ``What does tourism, the world's single largest business, have to sell?''

Know someone actually looking forward to Windows Vista? Then ``The Best of Technology Writing 2006,'' edited by Brendan I. Koerner (DigitalCultureBooks, $17.95) is for them. The book offers two dozen entertaining articles about computers and digital culture culled from various geek bibles, including Wired magazine and Technology Review.

One contributor to that volume is Steven Johnson, whose latest book is the compulsively readable ``The Ghost Map'' (Riverhead, $26.95). Subtitled, ``The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic -- and How It Changed Science, Cities and the Modern World,'' the book makes the story of a cholera epidemic in 1854 and the English physician who sought to contain it a page- turning thriller, sprinkled with a heady dose of insight into the evolution of modern urban design and public health.

Another engrossing read comes from David Edmonds and John Eidinow, whose ``Rousseau's Dog: Two Great Thinkers at War in the Age of Enlightenment'' (Ecco, $25.95) documents the feud between two of the 18th century's intellectual giants: the Scotsman David Hume, who believed in the apotheosis of reason, and Swiss-born Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who fought for the exaltation of emotion.

Eggheads also populate Ken Jennings's ``Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs'' (Villard, $25.95). Jennings is best known as the competitor who spent more than two years on ``Jeopardy!'' where he won more than $2.5 million. He proves to be an able writer, zestfully delving into the subculture of the information-obsessed and offering dozens of brain teasers along the way.

For physical rather than intellectual gamesmanship, try Mark St. Amant's ``Just Kick It: Tales of an Underdog, Over-Age, Out- of-Place Semi-Pro Football Player'' (Scribner, $23), in which St. Amant, a 37-year-old former advertising executive and fantasy- football fanatic, joins a real, semi-pro football team and experiences equal amounts of pleasure and pain by donning the pads and taking the hits.

In ``The Suit: A Machiavellian Approach to Men's Style'' (Collins, $18.95), Nicholas Antongiavanni -- the nom-de-plume of political speechwriter Michael Anton -- uses ``The Prince'' as a blueprint for men to dress for success and get almost anything they want, from a promotion to a date.

A woman's handbag can say as much if not more about her than a man's suit, or so argues Winifred Gallagher in ``It's in the Bag: What Purses Reveal -- and Conceal'' (HarperCollins, $19.95). Her brief, delightful book covers the history of the handbag, the politics of the luxury-bag design business, and what the contents of a woman's handbag divulge about her inner life.

Finally, for those who insist the holidays have something to do with matters of the spirit, the excellent anthology ``This I Believe: The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women,'' edited by Jay Allison and Dan Gediman (Holt, $23), is especially appropriate for the season. Based on the National Public Radio series of the same name, ``This I Believe'' includes 80 personal essays from famous individuals, such as John McCain and Eleanor Roosevelt, and ordinary Americans, about their beliefs.

(Edward Nawotka is a critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

Classic Ferraris and Private Islands: Holiday Lifestyle Books

By Edward Nawotka

Dec. 14 (Bloomberg) -- The ferociously sexy cover of ``Ferrari: The Road from Maranello'' by Dennis Adler (Random House, $45) is enough to make a grown man consider a mid-life crisis: a brilliant red Ferrari 250 GTO, the twin slashes in its flanks suggesting flight even at rest.

This beautifully illustrated history of the Italian automaker started by Enzo Ferrari in 1945 offers more than 350 archival photographs of the great Ferrari racers and road cars, as well as interviews with legendary designers, such as Sergio Pininfarina, and drivers, including Dan Gurney and Carroll Shelby.

``Luxury Private Islands'' edited by Vladi Private Islands (teNeues, $45). Who hasn't dreamed of escaping to a tropical paradise all your own? This dreamy book features more than 300 photos of some of world's most exclusive and expensive private properties, including Marlon Brando's South Pacific atoll, Sir Richard Branson's island in the British Virgin Islands and Mel Gibson's hideaway in Fiji.

``Destination Art'' by Amy Dempsey (University of California Press, $39.95). This new travel guide for the international art tourist surveys 200 modern and contemporary art destinations, offering a critique of the most important large-scale, public works of this and the last century, and covering a wide variety environmental pieces, sculpture parks, architecture and art towns.

``A Needle in the Right Hand of God: The Norman Conquest of 1066 and the Making and Meaning of the Bayeux Tapestry'' by R. Howard Block (Random House, $25.95). The head of Yale's humanities department recounts the story of the Battle of Hastings and the immense effort that went into embroidering it onto the Bayeux Tapestry, perhaps the most memorable 230 feet of fabric in the world.

``Legacy of Honor: The Values and Influence of America's Eagle Scouts'' by Alvin Townley (Thomas Dunne, $24.95). Townley considers how famous Eagle Scouts -- Microsoft founder Bill Gates, astronaut Jim Lovell and hotelier J.W. Marriott, among them -- have applied the Scouts' lessons of service, virtue and leadership in their professional and personal lives.

Townley interviews Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson as well as everyday citizens, among them a Vietnam War POW and a Hurricane Katrina relief worker. These are the true role models in an era when celebrity so often trumps heroism.

``The Art of Being a Woman: A Simple Guide to Everyday Love and Laughter'' by Veronique Vienne (Clarkson Potter, $18). Vienne, who wrote the bestseller ``The Art of Doing Nothing'' is yet another Frenchwoman who purports to know how American women can create more joie de vivre. She includes the predictable entreaties to accessorize wisely and not take men too seriously, but also tosses in some retro advice: Do housework in a nice dress and heels, and treat your home as if it were ``a lover.''

``Dave Barry's Money Secrets: Like: Why Is There a Giant Eyeball on the Dollar?'' by Dave Barry (Three Rivers, $24.95). This new collection of essays is an antidote to sanctimonious self-help guides and tries to answer age-old questions, such as ``Why it is not a good idea to use squirrels for money'' and ``Why good colleges cost so much, and how to make sure your child does not get into one.''

``The Zurau Aphorisms'' by Franz Kafka (Schocken, $15.95). These philosophical musings, recently rediscovered by the Italian scholar Roberto Calasso in the Bodleian Library at Oxford University, were written while the enigmatic Czech author was suffering from tuberculosis. They provide unique insight into Kafka's beguiling writing -- work that he says is akin to shedding light ``on a rapidly fleeing grimace.''

``An Orgy of Playboy's Eldon Dedini'' by Eldon Dedini (Fantagraphics, $39.95). Eldon Dedini's colorful cartoons about the vagaries of sex and love were a staple of Playboy magazine from 1959 to 2005. This collection brings together 200 of Dedini's signature panels of men, women and satyrs. Risque, sexist and definitely politically incorrect, they are also frequently funny and have a sharp satirical bite.

``Sex, Lies and Handwriting: A Top Expert Reveals the Secrets Hidden in Your Handwriting'' by Michelle Dresbold (Free Press, $24). The author argues that penmanship is a window into the soul. Here she analyzes the writing of politicians, re- examines written evidence in a number of unsolved criminal cases, and offers tips on reading love letters to see what they might be revealing -- or hiding.

Iraq Diagnosis, Putin's Russia, Women and Money: New Paperbacks

By Edward Nawotka

Dec. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Readers looking to cut through the White House and media spin of the Iraq Study Group report released yesterday can now read the document themselves and draw their own conclusions.

A tone of urgency pervades ``The Iraq Study Group Report: The Way Forward -- A New Approach,'' by James A. Baker III and Lee H. Hamilton (Vintage). It states, ``Current U.S. policy is not working, as the level of violence in Iraq is rising and the government is not advancing national reconciliation,'' and the $2 billion a week being spent in Iraq is ``not sustainable over an extended period, especially when progress is not being made.'' Baker and his team offer President Bush 79 recommendations for moving forward.

If 2004's ``9/11 Commission Report'' is any guide, expect to see the study-group manifesto heat up the bestseller lists. It is likely to attract a similarly broad swath of readers -- many of whom will be looking for answers to the question, ``Now what?''

Other highlights this month include:

``Putin's Russia: Life in a Failing Democracy'' by Anna Politkovskaya (Owl). Politkovskaya, a crusading journalist who was murdered in October, wrote this highly critical account of life in the New Russia, a dismal virtual dictatorship, where corruption ensures high offices go to the highest bidder, extra- judicial murders go unpunished and starving soldiers fight an endless, pointless war against terror in Chechnya. And this all before outspoken critics began expiring in exotic ways.

``Money, a Memoir: Women, Emotions, and Cash'' by Liz Perle (Picador). Reflecting on her own transition from well-off wife to nearly bankrupt divorcee, Perle examines the complicated relationship women have with money -- from the financial sacrifices that can factor into the decision to marry and have children, to some women's seemingly irrational need for costly handbags, cosmetics and shoes.

``President Reagan: The Triumph of Imagination'' by Richard Reeves (Simon & Schuster). One of nearly 900 books on the late president, Reeve's biography focuses on Reagan as ``The Great Communicator'' -- of ideas rather than facts -- and demonstrates how Reagan's seemingly low-key demeanor masked a sharp, intuitive intellect that charmed everyone from Joe Public to Mikhail Gorbachev.

``A Nation Among Nations: America's Place in World History'' by Thomas Bender (Hill & Wang). A revisionist survey of American history that places U.S. development in the context of global history. Bender argues that the Civil War was but one conflict in a larger wave of revolutions taking place around the world at the same time, and that our financial influence is not solely of our making, but the result of broader capitalist movement across centuries and continents.

``Heroes: A History of Hero Worship'' by Lucy Hughes-Hallett (Anchor). Since Sept. 11, 2001, the word ``hero'' has been tossed around like confetti. Here, a British historian contemplates the meaning of heroism and tries to find it in the lives of Alcibiades, El Cid, Albrecht von Wallenstein, Cato, Sir Francis Drake and Garibaldi, all of whom she measures against archetypes including Achilles the soldier and Odysseus the adventurer.

``Field Notes From a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change'' by Elizabeth Kolbert (Bloomsbury). The New Yorker magazine writer's account of climate change and degradation examines sites in Alaska, the Netherlands and elsewhere and argues that changing weather patterns will threaten agriculture and food supplies while warmer seas will spawn more storms of greater intensity and flood more coastal areas.

``The Caliph's House: A Year in Casablanca'' by Tahir Shah (Bantam). A British journalist's spirited memoir of moving his young family from rainy London to mystifying Morocco, where he purchases Dar Khalifa, a ruined mansion by the sea, and much like Peter Mayle in ``A Year in Provence,'' finds that renovating his new home in the midst of a foreign culture is far more trouble than he anticipated.

``Gentlemen and Players'' by Joanne Harris (HarperCollins). In this entertaining novel by the author of ``Chocolat,'' a veteran Latin teacher and a young newcomer -- one with access to dangerous secrets -- vie for control over the future of the revered St. Oswald's Grammar School for Boys, itself struggling to adapt to the new, fast-moving information age while trying to maintain the school's traditional, buttoned-down manner.

``Everybody Loves Somebody'' by Joanna Scott (Back Bay). This absorbing collection of 10 short stories considers the vagaries of love and marriage in a wide variety of contexts, from Europe in the wake of World War I, where a young couple's wedding takes on unexpected layers of meaning, to contemporary New York, where a Madison Avenue ad exec crashes his car in the Catskills while traveling home and is forced reconsider the definition of family.

Hannibal's Youth, Holy Shroud, Mosley's Sex Spree: New Novels

By Edward Nawotka

Dec. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Hannibal ``The Cannibal'' Lecter returns after a seven-year hiatus in ``Hannibal Rising'' (Delacorte), Thomas Harris's prequel to ``Silence of the Lambs'' and ``Hannibal.'' In this serial killer coming-of-age story, Harris gives Lecter a back story, attributing his unusual appetite to a childhood spent amid the horrors of World War II's Eastern Front, where he's discovered wandering in the snow, mute and chained.

When his uncle rescues him from a Russian orphanage and sends him to France, he finds succor with an exotic aunt, the Lady Murasaki. After becoming the youngest student ever admitted to medical school, Lecter's transformation into a monster ensues. Like Harris's previous novels, ``Hannibal Rising'' isn't for the queasy.

Other highlights this month include:

``Paula Spencer'' by Roddy Doyle (Viking). Doyle's sequel to the superb ``The Woman Who Walked Into Doors'' (1996) is equally worthy and now finds working-class Irish housewife Paula Spencer widowed, sober, coping with her grown children and struggling to make a new life for herself.

``Arlington Park'' by Rachel Cusk (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). In this suburban novel of manners, the members of an ensemble of upper-class London women are subsumed with ennui, regret and anxiety about their social standing during a single day that leads up to a tense, alcohol-fueled dinner party with their self- satisfied husbands.

``The Teahouse Fire'' by Ellis Avery (Riverhead). Fans of ``Memoirs of a Geisha'' will like this vivid historical novel set in 19th-century Kyoto about a young orphaned American girl who is taken in as a servant at a teahouse, where she serves a difficult mistress, witnesses the advent of modern Japan and undergoes her own Geisha-like rebirth.

``Killing Johnny Fry: A Sexistential Novel'' by Walter Mosley (Bloomsbury). Mosley is more than a mystery writer. He's written science fiction, quasi-political thrillers and now his first erotic novel, which stars Cordel Carmel, a 45-year-old man who goes on a soul-searching sex spree after finding his longtime girlfriend in bed with a well-endowed white man.

``The Alchemy of Desire'' by Tarun J. Tejpal (Ecco). Well- known Indian newsman Tejpal serves up a fat, Henry Miller-esqe novel about literary inspiration and sex, in which a writer renovating a house in the Himalayas uncovers the diary of a glamorous American woman's adventures in the subcontinent. He soon falls for this dead, idealized woman, spurning his own very real, very desirable wife.

``The End as I Know It: A Novel of Millennial Anxiety'' by Kevin Shay (Doubleday). Shay, contributor to the hipster literary journal ``McSweeney's,'' revisits the Y2K scare in this quirky story featuring a neurotic puppeteer and children's entertainer who embarks on a cross-country road trip to warn that the end is nigh.

``Spinning Dixie'' by Eric Dezenhall (Thomas Dunne). The author, CEO of an eponymous Washington crisis-management firm, applies his expertise in this broad farce about a disgraced presidential press secretary who tries to help a high-school girlfriend save her Tennessee plantation from her nefarious ex- husband who intends to use it as a toxic waste dump. The solution involves creating a media storm that involves an army of Civil War re-enactors, the National Guard and the promise of Confederate gold.

``The Brotherhood of the Holy Shroud'' by Julia Navarro (Bantam). A bestseller abroad, Navarro's entry in the post-``Da Vinci Code'' horse race of religious-themed thrillers starts with a fire at the Turin Cathedral, where Jesus' burial cloth is housed. When the Italian Art Crimes Department investigates, they uncover a pattern of similar suspicious fires, leading to evidence of a longstanding war between the Knights Templar and other secret societies.

``The Black Sun'' by James Twining (HarperCollins). The second in a budding series about former CIA agent and art thief Tom Kirk, who, after an Auschwitz survivor is murdered and his tattooed arm disappears, is recruited to thwart an extremist neo- Nazi group called Kristall Blade from recovering Adolf Eichmann's infamous Hungarian ``gold train'' and uncovering the Russian Amber Room.

Corporate Culture, Silent Cal, Loud Jim: December Nonfiction

Corporate Culture, Silent Cal, Loud Jim: December Nonfiction

By Edward Nawotka

Dec. 4 (Bloomberg) -- A company's culture may be invisible, but it pervades every aspect of a business environment, writes Jerome Want in ``Corporate Culture: Illuminating the Black Hole'' (St. Martin's).

Want, a former director of Organization Design and Development with Motorola, examines the strategies and orthodoxies at a variety of companies, from Cisco to Harley- Davidson, and defines the predominant corporate cultures, from predatory to bureaucratic to what he dubs ``high-performing New Age.''

He explains how the forward-thinking, environmentally savvy and employee-sensitive corporate culture at Vermont's Green Mountain Coffee Roasters helped transform it from a small regional operation to a nationally recognized brand.

Mature companies such as Xerox and Polaroid, once at the pinnacle of their industries, have suffered from their intransigent corporate cultures. Internal dynamics can have a serious effect on a company's bottom line and may be an elusive but very real indicator of a company's future success or failure.

Other highlights this month include:

``Jim Cramer's Mad Money: Watch TV, Get Rich'' by James J. Cramer (Simon & Schuster). Cramer, the ``Booyah''-bellowing host of CNBC's ``Mad Money,'' distills his investment wisdom in this new book, which promises to explain how he judges a stock in mere seconds during the show's infamous ``Lightning Round,'' what to look out for in CEO and CFO interviews, and why he's so manic on- air.

``About Alice'' by Calvin Trillin (Random House). Trillin's wife, Alice, who often starred as a comic figure in his writing, died on Sept. 11, 2001, at age 63 from complications of lung cancer. Here she gets a moving yet funny homage from her eloquent husband.

``Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything'' by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams (Portfolio). Based on a $9 million research project, this book examines how the Internet has empowered the masses to produce, edit and distribute their own content and what this means for companies that are the traditional gatekeepers of information.

``Age Shock and Pension Power: How Finance Is Failing Us'' by Robin Blackburn (Verso). An academic argues that despite the proliferation of investment products, greed and mismanagement in the financial-service industry have undermined the ability of savings and pension funds to support our graying population.

``Calvin Coolidge'' by David Greenberg (Times Books). Greenberg offers a brief biography of the 30th U.S. president, who served from 1923 to 1929 and made business development a platform of his administration, laying the groundwork for future generations of conservative, fiscally minded politicians. It is Coolidge who declared: ``The chief business of the American people is business.''

``Natural Causes: Death, Lies and Politics in America's Vitamin and Herbal Supplement Industry'' by Dan Hurley (Broadway Books). Hurley's examination of this $20 billion industry reveals how the 1994 Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act left the business of vitamins virtually unregulated and, as a consequence, given it free rein to prey on uninformed consumers.

``It's Called Work for a Reason! Your Success Is Your Own Damn Fault'' by Larry Winget (Gotham). Another bullying TV talking head, Winget, the host of A&E's ``Big Spender,'' delves into what he sees as right and wrong with businesses. With frequent reminders that companies stress making money, he offers advice on how to take best advantage of a variety of workplace scenarios.

``Next Now: Trends for the Future'' by Marian Salzman and Ira Matathia (Palgrave Macmillan). Salzman, executive vice president at ad agency JWT, and co-author Matathia, a brand consultant, collate trends from across the globe in an attempt to forecast what's coming. Their conclusions aren't likely to wow you. They say, for example, that ``Chindia'' is going to be an economic force. But they can be entertaining.

``The Judges: A Penetrating Exploration of American Courts and of the New Decisions -- Hard Decisions -- They Must Make for a New Millennium'' by Martin Mayer (Truman Talley Books). Mayer took six years to write this expose of the judicial system, which covers everything from the Supreme Court on down to local criminal courts. He concludes that cronyism put many of our 30,000 judges on the bench and a significant percentage needs specialized training.

``Blocking the Courthouse Door: How the Republican Party and Its Corporate Allies Are Taking Away Your Right to Sue'' by Stephanie Mencimer (Free Press). A Washington Monthly reporter tackles the issue of tort reform, rehashing arguments for and against, and comes away with the belief that the biggest beneficiaries of reform are politically conservative corporations in danger of being sued (think of McDonald's and its once scalding hot coffee), while mostly liberal trial lawyers and Joe Citizen lose out.

``American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry David Thoreau: Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work'' by Susan Cheever (Simon & Schuster). This gossipy group portrait of the Transcendentalists of Concord, Massachusetts, delves into their personal rivalries, speculates about their love lives and examines their early form of activism during the period 1840 to 1868.

``Johann Sebastian Bach: Life and Work'' by Martin Geck (Harcourt). Lucidly written in a style that is accessible to non- musicologists, this biography by an acclaimed German academic devotes lengthy passages to analyzing Bach's renowned technique and why his music so moves listeners.

(Edward Nawotka is a critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

Crichton's `Next': Profiteers, Chatty Chimps in the Gene Pool

Crichton's `Next': Profiteers, Chatty Chimps in the Gene Pool

By Edward Nawotka

Nov. 28 (Bloomberg) -- In Michael Crichton's ``Next,'' universities forge billion-dollar deals with Big Pharma, humans are mined for their genetic code, animals are bred to emulate the higher functions of humans, venture capitalists conspire to ensure the success of their investments and lawyers make fortunes litigating the whole resulting mess.

The story revolves around a legal battle over the ownership of a sample of cancer-fighting cells taken from Frank Burnett, a 51-year-old construction worker battling leukemia. Burnett unsuccessfully sues to prevent the sale of the cells by the University of California to a biogenetics startup called BioGen for $3 billion.

Soon after, however, the startup discovers that the cells have been contaminated, rendering them worthless. A Hummer- driving bounty hunter is dispatched to procure new tissue samples from Burnett, his daughter and her young son with a big, scary needle. Then it's back to court to litigate whether BioGen has a right to pursue its ``property.''

Elsewhere, genetic oddities are manifesting themselves. An Indonesian orangutan is heard swearing at tourists in French and Dutch and is soon hounded by reporters; a chatty African gray parrot helps a Parisian boy do his math homework; and a San Diego researcher sires a human-chimp crossbreed that he brings home and sends to grade school in baseball cap and jeans. At school, the ``humanzee,'' named Dave, defends his human half-brother from a group of bullying skater punks, bombarding them with his own feces.

Silvio Soap

Crichton's 2004 polemical novel, ``State of Fear,'' sought to debunk evidence of global warming. Crichton again has an agenda and again goes to great lengths to indoctrinate his audience. He collates recent genetic research, loads the story with statistics and cuts down the most hyperbolic conclusions, such as the widespread report that blondes are genetically predetermined to go extinct in 200 years.

He also sprinkles the text with ``News of the Weird'' stories, some false, such as the swearing ape, and some merely dubious, such as one about the artist who turned former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's liposuctioned fat into a bar of soap and sold it for $18,000.

When the villainous evangelical Christian in charge of genetics at the National Institutes of Health is gunned down after co-opting another researcher's project, and a wealthy investor contracts a rare form of cancer and is told that no cure is available because the potential for profiting from it wasn't there, Crichton's slant becomes all too obvious: He wants to convince us that the genetic research industry is run exclusively for profit and needs reform. (If you miss this point in the novel, Crichton spells it out in an epilogue.)

A Little Sex

Though ``Next'' is informative, it's also a tepid read. The straw characters flit in and out of the action, have a little sex and serve mostly as mouthpieces. Certain plot lines, including a potentially provocative one about a researcher who administers a drug in the hope it will cure drug addiction, never truly resolve -- a death sentence for a thriller.

``Jurassic Park'' was also set in a world of genetic engineering run amok, but that book was rooted much more in fantasy than in reality. In ``Next,'' Crichton has mounted a bully pulpit and seems loath to give it up. That's placed him a long way from the smart, high-octane stories we expect from him.

``Next'' by Michael Crichton is published by HarperCollins (431 pages, $27.95).

Gallic Tips, Art Thugs, Jefferson's Bubbly: Lifestyle Books

Gallic Tips, Art Thugs, Jefferson's Bubbly: Lifestyle Books

By Edward Nawotka

Nov. 14 (Bloomberg) -- In ``French Women for All Seasons: A Year of Secrets, Recipes, and Pleasure'' (Knopf), Mireille Guiliano serves up a second helping of Gallic ``sagesse.''

The long-time executive at the luxury firm LVMH and public face of Champagne Veuve Clicquot expands on the ideas outlined in her surprise 2004 bestseller ``French Women Don't Get Fat,'' a philosophy that can be summarized as: embrace quality, shop according to the season, eat in moderation and feel free to indulge in a croissant, a little chocolate and a glass of wine whenever desired.

No, it may not be groundbreaking advice, but it's still news to many Americans that living ``comme les francaises'' is healthier and more satisfying than everyday supersizing.

Also new this month:

``The Power of Art'' by Simon Schama (Ecco). The cultural historian believes ``great art has dreadful manners'' and here meditates on the question of ``what's art really for.'' He critiques eight masterpieces, one each by an artist he dubs a ``thug,'' including Bernini, Caravaggio, Rembrandt, David, Turner, Van Gogh, Picasso and Rothko.

``Schott's Almanac 2007'' by Ben Schott (Bloomsbury). This quirky twist on the annual almanac, written by a British humorist known for his bestselling books of miscellany, covers such need- to-know cocktail party trivia as who won ``American Idol,'' the finalists for the Bad Sex in Fiction award and the number of reported shark attacks.

``The Smart Money: How the World's Best Sports Bettors Beat the Bookies Out of Millions: A Memoir'' by Michael Konik (Simon & Schuster). Konik recounts his harrowing experiences working for Rick ``Big Daddy'' Matthews, the mastermind behind ``The Brain Trust,'' the biggest sport-gambling syndicate in America, which routinely wagered huge sums of money on a single game and consistently beat the Vegas odds.

``Thomas Jefferson on Wine'' by John Hailman (The University Press of Mississippi). Hailman looks at the oenophile president through his lifelong passion for wine and offers a unique insight into his character, his effort to steer compatriots away from hard liquor and his savvy execution of ``Champagne diplomacy'' while hosting White House dinners.

``The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Arles'' by Martin Gayford (Little, Brown). A psychoanalytic portrait (by Bloomberg's London art critic) of the fertile period when the two artists shared a house in the south of France and painted the same subjects, ending with Van Gogh cutting off his ear and giving it to a prostitute.

``A Star Is Found: Our Adventures Casting Some of Hollywood's Biggest Movies'' by Janet Hirshenson and Jane Jenkins. A dishy look into the lives of casting directors from two of the top star makers in the business, credited with discovering Tom Cruise, Leonardo DiCaprio and Meg Ryan, among many others.

``Monopoly: The World's Most Famous Game -- and How It Got That Way'' by Philip E. Orbanes (Da Capo). Monopoly started out as a teaching tool for economics class and now has sold more than 200 million copies. Orbanes outlines how this American game, inspired by J.P. Morgan, has had pervasive influence on our culture and the world's understanding of wealth creation.

``Theories of Everything: Selected, Collected and Health- Inspected Cartoons by Roz Chast, 1978-2006'' by Roz Chast (Bloomsbury). More than 400 pages of cartoons, many in color, from the New Yorker magazine mainstay whose anxiety-prone subjects are plagued by a catalog of modern neuroses.

``Dunhill by Design'' by Nick Foulkes (Flammarion). A GQ writer's beautifully illustrated history of Alfred Dunhill's influence on men's fashion, from 1890 to the present day, spans his early innovative products for Edwardian motorists, the move into specialized accessories such as watches and writing instruments, and the company's recent foray into leather goods and clothing.