The New York Times

The New York Times Book Review's The Shortlist

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Book Recommendations:

Recommended by The New York Times

Fodor’s is pitched a few notches higher…aimed at a fairly discerning traveler with an appetite for background and the occasional surprise. (from Amazon)

Whether you want to get a glimpse of the Golden Gate Bridge, wander among giant redwood trees in Sequoia National Park, or camp in Yosemite Valley, the local Fodor's travel experts in Northern California are here to help! Fodor's Northern California guidebook is packed with maps, carefully curated recommendations, and everything else you need to simplify your trip-planning process and make the most of your time. This new edition has been fully-redesigned with an easy-to-read layout, fresh information, and beautiful color photos. Fodor's California travel guide includes: AN ILLUSTRATED ULTIMATE EXPERIENCES GUIDE to the top things to see and doMULTIPLE ITINERARIES to effectively organize your days and maximize your timeMORE THAN 24 DETAILED MAPS and a FREE PULL-OUT MAP to help you navigate confidentlyCOLOR PHOTOS throughout to spark your wanderlust!HONEST RECOMMENDATIONS FROM LOCALS on the best sights, restaurants, hotels, nightlife, shopping, performing arts, activities, and morePHOTO-FILLED “BEST OF” FEATURES on “What to Eat and Drink,” “Best Wineries in Napa & Sonoma,” “San Francisco's Chinatown,” and moreTRIP-PLANNING TOOLS AND PRACTICAL TIPS including when to go, getting around, beating the crowds, and saving time and moneyHISTORICAL AND CULTURAL INSIGHTS providing rich context on the local people, politics, art, architecture, cuisine, music, geography and moreSPECIAL FEATURES on the “San Francisco's Chinatown,” “San Francisco's Cable Cars,” and “Wine-Tasting in Napa & Sonoma” LOCAL WRITERS to help you find the under-the-radar gemsUP-TO-DATE COVERAGE ON: San Francisco, Napa and Sonoma, the Pacific Coast Highway, Monterey, Carmel, Sacramento, Lake Tahoe, Yosemite National Park, Sequoia & Kings Canyon National Parks, Redwood National Park, and more. Planning on visiting other destinations in the northwest? Check out Fodor's Oregon, Fodor's Pacific Northwest, Fodor's Inside Portland, and Fodor's Seattle. *Important note for digital editions: The digital edition of this guide does not contain all the images or text included in the physical edition. ABOUT FODOR'S AUTHORS: Each Fodor's Travel Guide is researched and written by local experts. Fodor's has been offering expert advice for all tastes and budgets for over 80 years. For more travel inspiration, you can sign up for our travel newsletter at fodors.com/newsletter/signup, or follow us @FodorsTravel on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. We invite you to join our friendly community of travel experts at fodors.com/community to ask any other questions and share your experience with us!

Recommended by The New York Times

Fodor’s is pitched a few notches higher….aimed at a fairly discerning traveler with an appetite for background and the occasional surprise. (from Amazon)

Whether you want to drive the Overseas Highway, spend the day on a charter fishing boat, or dine on fresh seafood at waterfront restaurants, the local Fodor's travel experts in the Florida Keys Islands are here to help! Fodor's In Focus Florida Keys guidebook is packed with maps, carefully curated recommendations, and everything else you need to simplify your trip-planning process and make the most of your time. This new edition has been fully-redesigned with an easy-to-read layout, fresh information, and beautiful color photos. Fodor's In Focus Florida Keys travel guide includes: AN ILLUSTRATED ULTIMATE EXPERIENCES GUIDE to the top things to see and doMULTIPLE ITINERARIES to effectively organize your days and maximize your timeMORE THAN 13 DETAILED MAPS to help you navigate confidentlyCOLOR PHOTOS throughout to spark your wanderlust!HONEST RECOMMENDATIONS FROM LOCALS on the best sights, restaurants, hotels, beaches, snorkeling and scuba diving sites, outdoor activities, nightlife, shopping, and morePHOTO-FILLED “BEST OF” FEATURES on “Best Beaches” “Best Things to Eat and Drink” and moreTRIP-PLANNING TOOLS AND PRACTICAL TIPS including when to go, getting around, beating the crowds, and saving time and moneyHISTORICAL AND CULTURAL INSIGHTS providing rich context on the local cuisine, marine life, and moreSPECIAL FEATURES on “A Key West Walking Tour,” “Kids and Families,” and “Excursion to Dry Tortugas National Park”LOCAL WRITERS to help you find the under-the-radar gemsUP-TO-DATE COVERAGE ON: Key West, Key Largo, Islamorada, Marathon, Dry Tortugas National Park, and more Planning on visiting more of Florida and some of the islands of the Caribbean? Check out Fodor's Florida, Fodor's South Florida, Fodor's InFocus Turks and Caicos Islands, Fodor's InFocus Aruba, and Fodor's InFocus Cayman Islands. *Important note for digital editions: The digital edition of this guide does not contain all the images or text included in the physical edition. ABOUT FODOR'S AUTHORS: Each Fodor's Travel Guide is researched and written by local experts. Fodor's has been offering expert advice for all tastes and budgets for over 80 years. For more travel inspiration, you can sign up for our travel newsletter at fodors.com/newsletter/signup, or follow us @FodorsTravel on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. We invite you to join our friendly community of travel experts at fodors.com/community to ask any other questions and share your experience with us!

Recommended by The New York Times

Davis’ work is the cruel and perpetual folly of the ruling elites. (from Amazon)

No metropolis has been more loved or more hated. To its official boosters, “Los Angeles brings it all together.” To detractors, LA is a sunlit mortuary where “you can rot without feeling it.” To Mike Davis, the author of this fiercely elegant and wide- ranging work of social history, Los Angeles is both utopia and dystopia, a place where the last Joshua trees are being plowed under to make room for model communities in the desert, where the rich have hired their own police to fend off street gangs, as well as armed Beirut militias. In City of Quartz, Davis reconstructs LA’s shadow history and dissects its ethereal economy. He tells us who has the power and how they hold on to it. He gives us a city of Dickensian extremes, Pynchonesque conspiracies, and a desperation straight out of Nathaniel Westa city in which we may glimpse our own future mirrored with terrifying clarity.

Recommended by The New York Times

Intriguing.... Provocative.... Cherlin has come up with an original thesis [to explain] this peculiar paradox—we idealize marriage and yet we’re so bad at it. (from Amazon)

From one of the nation’s leading experts on the American family, a book that explores the state of marriage in America today; its evolution culturally; and with regard to religion and the law, how and why the present state of marriage—a merry-go-round of partnerships—developed, and the implications for parents and children. During Andrew J. Cherlin’s three decades of study and analysis of family life, he came to see that marriage in the United States was different than in other Western countries—Western Europe, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand—in a way that no one was writing about. He realized that marriage in America, unlike in other countries in the world, was seen as a cultural idael, and the U.S. government was spending money to promote its continuation. The institution of marriage had become a social and political battlefield. Cherlin writes that Americans marry more repeatedly and have more live-in partners; that marriage and remarriage, frequent divorce, and short-term cohabiting relationships have resulted in a core upheaval in American family life; and that American children have been left to cope with the frequent and disruptive comings and goings of parents. He writes that Americans have come to embrace two contradictory models of personal and family life: marriage, a formal commitment to share one’s life with another; and individualism, which emphasizes personal growth and development. The former promotes a lasting relationship; the latter encourages one to move on. Each model is culturally reinforced by two basic, powerful institutions: religion and law. Cherlin writes about the inconsistency of American religion and law with regard to family life. He argues that contemporary religion, although supportive of marriage, embraces the quest for self-development. And he makes clear that family law, which used to be centered on marriage, is today focused on the individual and his or her obligations to children. He discusses the movement and civil struggle for same-sex marriage in America as opposed to in many European countries, where marriage is seen by gay couples as an oppressive heterosexual institution. A fascinating book that illuminates the shifting nature of America’s oldest and most cherished social institution, the subject of intense and ever-increasing national debate.

Recommended by The New York Times

[Miller] writes with precision, conviction, respect and thoughtfulness about pain as well as the disparate, and at times unjust, experiences that people face when navigating the American health care system. . . . What Doesn't Kill You is relentlessly researched and undeniably smart, but more than that, it is humane and offers reliable information to chronically ill people and their allies. (from Amazon)

"Should be read by anyone with a body. . . . Relentlessly researched and undeniably smart." ―The New York Times Named one of BuzzFeed's "Best Books of 2021" What Doesn't Kill You is the riveting account of a young journalist’s awakening to chronic illness, weaving together personal story and reporting to shed light on living with an ailment forever. Tessa Miller was an ambitious twentysomething writer in New York City when, on a random fall day, her stomach began to seize up. At first, she toughed it out through searing pain, taking sick days from work, unable to leave the bathroom or her bed. But when it became undeniable that something was seriously wrong, Miller gave in to family pressure and went to the hospital―beginning a years-long nightmare of procedures, misdiagnoses, and life-threatening infections. Once she was finally correctly diagnosed with Crohn’s disease, Miller faced another battle: accepting that she will never get better. Today, an astonishing three in five adults in the United States suffer from a chronic disease―a percentage expected to rise post-Covid. Whether the illness is arthritis, asthma, Crohn's, diabetes, endometriosis, multiple sclerosis, ulcerative colitis, or any other incurable illness, and whether the sufferer is a colleague, a loved one, or you, these diseases have an impact on just about every one of us. Yet there remains an air of shame and isolation about the topic of chronic sickness. Millions must endure these disorders not only physically but also emotionally, balancing the stress of relationships and work amid the ever-present threat of health complications. Miller segues seamlessly from her dramatic personal experiences into a frank look at the cultural realities (medical, occupational, social) inherent in receiving a lifetime diagnosis. She offers hard-earned wisdom, solidarity, and an ultimately surprising promise of joy for those trying to make sense of it all.

Recommended by The New York Times

Gallegos provides crucial background for the country's present situation, and also offers a solution for fixing the country's economy and helping it re-enter the global energy industry. (from Amazon)

Beneath Venezuelan soil lies an ocean of crude—the world’s largest reserves—an oil patch that shaped the nature of the global energy business. Unfortunately, a dysfunctional anti-American, leftist government controls this vast resource and has used its wealth to foster voter support, ultimately wreaking economic havoc. Crude Nation reveals the ways in which this mismanagement has led to Venezuela’s economic ruin and turned the country into a cautionary tale for the world. Raúl Gallegos, a former Caracas-based oil correspondent, paints a picture both vivid and analytical of the country’s economic decline, the government’s foolhardy economic policies, and the wrecked lives of Venezuelans. Without transparency, the Venezuelan government uses oil money to subsidize life for its citizens in myriad unsustainable ways, while regulating nearly every aspect of day-to-day existence in Venezuela. This has created a paradox in which citizens can fill up the tanks of their SUVs for less than one American dollar while simultaneously enduring nationwide shortages of staples such as milk, sugar, and toilet paper. Gallegos’s insightful analysis shows how mismanagement has ruined Venezuela again and again over the past century and lays out how Venezuelans can begin to fix their country, a nation that can play an important role in the global energy industry.

Recommended by The New York Times

An exhaustive work that is never exhausting, a credit both to Jones’s brisk style and to Henson’s exceptional life. (from Amazon)

Jim Henson: The Biography book cover

by Brian Jay Jones·You?

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY BOOKPAGE For the first time ever—a comprehensive biography of one of the twentieth century’s most innovative creative artists: the incomparable, irreplaceable Jim Henson He was a gentle dreamer whose genial bearded visage was recognized around the world, but most people got to know him only through the iconic characters born of his fertile imagination: Kermit the Frog, Bert and Ernie, Miss Piggy, Big Bird. The Muppets made Jim Henson a household name, but they were just part of his remarkable story. This extraordinary biography—written with the generous cooperation of the Henson family—covers the full arc of Henson’s all-too-brief life: from his childhood in Leland, Mississippi, through the years of burgeoning fame in America, to the decade of international celebrity that preceded his untimely death at age fifty-three. Drawing on hundreds of hours of new interviews with Henson's family, friends, and closest collaborators, as well as unprecedented access to private family and company archives, Brian Jay Jones explores the creation of the Muppets, Henson’s contributions to Sesame Street and Saturday Night Live, and his nearly ten-year campaign to bring The Muppet Show to television. Jones provides the imaginative context for Henson’s non-Muppet projects, including the richly imagined worlds of The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth—as well as fascinating misfires like Henson’s dream of opening an inflatable psychedelic nightclub. An uncommonly intimate portrait, Jim Henson captures all the facets of this American original: the master craftsman who revolutionized the presentation of puppets on television, the savvy businessman whose dealmaking prowess won him a reputation as “the new Walt Disney,” and the creative team leader whose collaborative ethos earned him the undying loyalty of everyone who worked for him. Here also is insight into Henson’s intensely private personal life: his Christian Science upbringing, his love of fast cars and expensive art, and his weakness for women. Though an optimist by nature, Henson was haunted by the notion that he would not have time to do all the things he wanted to do in life—a fear that his heartbreaking final hours would prove all too well founded. An up-close look at the charmed life of a legend, Jim Henson gives the full measure to a man whose joyful genius transcended age, language, geography, and culture—and continues to beguile audiences worldwide. Praise for Jim Henson “Jim Henson vibrantly delves into the magnificent man and his Muppet methods: It’s an absolute must-read!”—Neil Patrick Harris “An exhaustive work that is never exhausting, a credit both to Jones’s brisk style and to Henson’s exceptional life.”—The New York Times “[A] sweeping portrait that is a mix of humor, mirth and poignancy.”—Washington Independent Review of Books “A meticulously researched tome chock-full of gems about the Muppets and the most thorough portrait of their creator ever crafted.”—Associated Press “Jim was one of my closest friends. And yet I found out things about him in Jim Henson that were new to me. Brian Jay Jones has captured the layers of Jim’s genius and humanity, as well as the flaws that made Jim, like all of us, so delightfully imperfect. I thank Brian for giving Jim life again. This book has captured the spirit of Jim Henson.”—Frank Oz

Recommended by The New York Times

Those interested in understanding how feelings unconsciously steer thought ... are in for a stimulating read. Mlodinow handles this topic astutely with compelling examples and attention to the latest research, which is quite spectacular. . . . A lively exposé of the growing consensus about the limited power of rationality and decision-making. (from Amazon)

We’ve all been told that thinking rationally is the key to success. But at the cutting edge of science, researchers are discovering that feeling is every bit as important as thinking in this "lively exposé of the growing consensus about the limited power of rationality and decision-making" (The New York Times Book Review). You make hundreds of decisions every day, from what to eat for breakfast to how you should invest, and not one of those decisions would be possible without emotion. It has long been said that thinking and feeling are separate and opposing forces in our behavior. But as Leonard Mlodinow, the best-selling author of Subliminal, tells us, extraordinary advances in psychology and neuroscience have proven that emotions are as critical to our well-being as thinking. How can you connect better with others? How can you make sense of your frustration, fear, and anxiety? What can you do to live a happier life? The answers lie in understanding your emotions. Journeying from the labs of pioneering scientists to real-world scenarios that have flirted with disaster, Mlodinow shows us how our emotions can help, why they sometimes hurt, and what we can learn in both instances. Using deep insights into our evolution and biology, Mlodinow gives us the tools to understand our emotions better and to maximize their benefits. Told with his characteristic clarity and fascinating stories, Emotional explores the new science of feelings and offers us an essential guide to making the most of one of nature’s greatest gifts.

Recommended by The New York Times

The moments when Vargas describes how profoundly alienated he feels from his own family ate the most candid and crushing parts of the book....Dear America is a potent rejoinder to those who tell Vargas he’s supposed to ‘get in line’ for citizenship, as if there were a line instead og a confounding jumble of vague statues and executive orders. (from Amazon)

THE NATIONAL BESTSELLER “This riveting, courageous memoir ought to be mandatory reading for every American.”  —Michelle Alexander, New York Times bestselling author of The New Jim Crow “l cried reading this book, realizing more fully what my parents endured.” —Amy Tan, New York Times bestselling author of The Joy Luck Club and Where the Past Begins “This book couldn’t be more timely and more necessary.” —Dave Eggers, New York Times bestselling author of What Is the What and The Monk of Mokha Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas, called “the most famous undocumented immigrant in America,” tackles one of the defining issues of our time in this explosive and deeply personal call to arms. “This is not a book about the politics of immigration. This book––at its core––is not about immigration at all. This book is about homelessness, not in a traditional sense, but in the unsettled, unmoored psychological state that undocumented immigrants like myself find ourselves in. This book is about lying and being forced to lie to get by; about passing as an American and as a contributing citizen; about families, keeping them together, and having to make new ones when you can’t. This book is about constantly hiding from the government and, in the process, hiding from ourselves. This book is about what it means to not have a home. After 25 years of living illegally in a country that does not consider me one of its own, this book is the closest thing I have to freedom.” —Jose Antonio Vargas, from Dear America

Recommended by The New York Times

It's the scenery—and the big guy standing in front of the scenery—that keeps us coming back to Craig Johnson's lean and leathery mysteries. (from Amazon)

The new novel in the beloved New York Times bestselling Longmire series. One of the most viewed paintings in American history, Custer's Last Fight, copied and distributed by Anheuser-Busch at a rate of over two million copies a year, was destroyed in a fire at the 7th Cavalry Headquarters in Fort Bliss, Texas, in 1946. Or was it? When Charley Lee Stillwater dies of an apparent heart attack at the Wyoming Home for Soldiers & Sailors, Walt Longmire is called in to try and make sense of a piece of a painting and a Florsheim shoebox containing a million dollars, sending the good sheriff on the trail of a dangerous art heist.

Recommended by The New York Times

Anyone interested in fly fishing or curious how the sport could possibly be of interest to anyone should hop to David Coggins’s excellent The Optimist. (from Amazon)

An “excellent” (The New York Times) modern tribute to an ageless pastime, and a practical guide to the art, philosophy, and rituals of fly fishing, by an expert, lifelong angler. In The Optimist, David Coggins makes a case for the skills and sensibility of an enduring sport and shares the secrets, frustrations, and triumphs of the great tradition of fly fishing, which has captivated anglers worldwide. Written in wry, wise, and keenly observed prose, each chapter focuses on a specific place, fish, and skill. Few individuals, for example, have the visual acuity required to catch the nearly invisible bonefish of the Bahamas flats. Or the patience to land the elusive Atlantic salmon, “the fish of a thousand casts,” in eastern Canada. Pursuing these challenges, Coggins, “a confirmed obsessive,” travels to one fishing paradise after another, including the great rivers of Patagonia, private chalk streams in England, remote ponds in Maine, and New York City’s Jamaica Bay. In each setting, he chronicles his fortunes and misfortunes with honesty and humor while meditating on how fishing teaches focus, inner stillness, and a connection to the natural world. Perfect for the novice, the enthusiastic amateur, and the devoted angler alike, The Optimist offers a practical path to enlightenment while providing “a rueful, thoughtful, and very funny examination of an elegant obsession” (Jay McInerney).

Recommended by The New York Times

A storyteller in the tradition of Mark Twain. He proves once again that it is possible to laugh out loud and scratch your head at the same time. (from Amazon)

Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman! book cover

by Richard P Feynman, Ralph Leighton, Bill Gates·You?

The Nobel Prize-winning theoretical physicist talks about his adventure-filled life in a series of transcribed taped discussions.

Recommended by The New York Times

Given the current hostility to the technology sector, the rejection of established H.R. wisdom and intensity of the organizational upheaval promoted by No Rules Rules may generate controversy. Mr. Hastings could have remained under the radar during the Silicon Valley’s cultural maelstrom. Instead, he has entered the fray with an important contribution that provides the beginnings of a road map for the sector to regain trust. . . No Rules Rules demonstrates that it is not only possible to pursue both freedom and responsibility at the same time, but that for Silicon Valley and the rest of us to thrive together, it is essential. (from Amazon)

No Rules Rules book cover

by Erin Meyer·You?

Hard work is irrelevant. Be radically honest. Adequate performance gets a generous severance. And never, ever try to please your boss. These are some of the ground rules if you work at Netflix. They are part of a unique cultural experiment that explains how the company has transformed itself at lightning speed from a DVD mail order service into a streaming superpower – with 125 million fervent subscribers and a market capitalisation bigger than Disney. Finally Reed Hastings, Netflix Chairman and CEO, is sharing the secrets that have revolutionised the entertainment and tech industries. With INSEAD business school professor Erin Meyer, he will explore his leadership philosophy – which begins by rejecting the accepted beliefs under which most companies operate – and how it plays out in practice at Netflix. From unlimited holidays to abolishing financial approvals, Netflix offers a fundamentally different way to run any organisation, one far more in tune with a fast-paced world. For anyone interested in creativity, productivity and innovation, the Netflix culture is something close to a holy grail. This book will make it, and its creator, fully accessible for the first time.

Recommended by The New York Times

One of those rare works that is both definitive for the period it covers and fascinating to read for sheer entertainment. (from Amazon)

Edison book cover

by Edmund Morris·You?

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edmund Morris comes a revelatory new biography of Thomas Alva Edison, the most prolific genius in American history. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY Time • Publishers Weekly • Kirkus Reviews Although Thomas Alva Edison was the most famous American of his time, and remains an international name today, he is mostly remembered only for the gift of universal electric light. His invention of the first practical incandescent lamp 140 years ago so dazzled the world—already reeling from his invention of the phonograph and dozens of other revolutionary devices—that it cast a shadow over his later achievements. In all, this near-deaf genius (“I haven’t heard a bird sing since I was twelve years old”) patented 1,093 inventions, not including others, such as the X-ray fluoroscope, that he left unlicensed for the benefit of medicine. One of the achievements of this staggering new biography, the first major life of Edison in more than twenty years, is that it portrays the unknown Edison—the philosopher, the futurist, the chemist, the botanist, the wartime defense adviser, the founder of nearly 250 companies—as fully as it deconstructs the Edison of mythological memory. Edmund Morris, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, brings to the task all the interpretive acuity and literary elegance that distinguished his previous biographies of Theodore Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, and Ludwig van Beethoven. A trained musician, Morris is especially well equipped to recount Edison’s fifty-year obsession with recording technology and his pioneering advances in the synchronization of movies and sound. Morris sweeps aside conspiratorial theories positing an enmity between Edison and Nikola Tesla and presents proof of their mutually admiring, if wary, relationship. Enlightened by seven years of research among the five million pages of original documents preserved in Edison’s huge laboratory at West Orange, New Jersey, and privileged access to family papers still held in trust, Morris is also able to bring his subject to life on the page—the adored yet autocratic and often neglectful husband of two wives and father of six children. If the great man who emerges from it is less a sentimental hero than an overwhelming force of nature, driven onward by compulsive creativity, then Edison is at last getting his biographical due.

Recommended by The New York Times

Battlefield reportage does not get more up close, gruesome, and personal. . . . The fear and confusion of battle are so vivid that in places, they rise like acrid smoke from the page. (from Amazon)

A former soldier who fled depression and drug addiction in England to cover Europe's bloodiest conflict since the Second World War recounts stories of brutality and compassion he recorded while in both Bosnia and Chechnya

Recommended by The New York Times

How to Listen to Jazz is an effort to teach casual listeners how 'careful listening can demystify virtually all of the intricacies and marvels of jazz.' (from Amazon)

A "radiantly accomplished" music scholar presents an accessible introduction to the art of listening to jazz (Wall Street Journal) In How to Listen to Jazz, award-winning music scholar Ted Gioia presents a lively introduction to one of America's premier art forms. He tells us what to listen for in a performance and includes a guide to today's leading jazz musicians. From Louis Armstrong's innovative sounds to the jazz-rock fusion of Miles Davis, Gioia covers the music's history and reveals the building blocks of improvisation. A true love letter to jazz by a foremost expert, How to Listen to Jazz is a must-read for anyone who's ever wanted to understand and better appreciate America's greatest contribution to music. "Mr. Gioia could not have done a better job. Through him, jazz might even find new devotees." -- Economist

Recommended by The New York Times

[Miles] peppers her book with quick bits of information about scientists and the work they do in service of understanding our planet and its earthquakes. … Her book becomes, in part, a love letter to the tedium and wizardry that is scientific discovery. (from Amazon)

A journey around the United States in search of the truth about the threat of earthquakes leads to spine-tingling discoveries, unnerving experts, and ultimately the kind of preparations that will actually help guide us through disasters. It’s a road trip full of surprises. Earthquakes. You need to worry about them only if you’re in San Francisco, right? Wrong. We have been making enormous changes to subterranean America, and Mother Earth, as always, has been making some of her own. . . . The consequences for our real estate, our civil engineering, and our communities will be huge because they will include earthquakes most of us do not expect and cannot imagine—at least not without reading Quakeland. Kathryn Miles descends into mines in the Northwest, dissects Mississippi levee engineering studies, uncovers the horrific risks of an earthquake in the Northeast, and interviews the seismologists, structual engineers, and emergency managers around the country who are addressing this ground shaking threat. As Miles relates, the era of human-induced earthquakes began in 1962 in Colorado after millions of gallons of chemical-weapon waste was pumped underground in the Rockies. More than 1,500 quakes over the following seven years resulted. The Department of Energy plans to dump spent nuclear rods in the same way. Evidence of fracking’s seismological impact continues to mount. . . . Humans as well as fault lines built our “quakeland”. What will happen when Memphis, home of FedEx's 1.5-million-packages-a-day hub, goes offline as a result of an earthquake along the unstable Reelfoot Fault? FEMA has estimated that a modest 7.0 magnitude quake (twenty of these happen per year around the world) along the Wasatch Fault under Salt Lake City would put a $33 billion dent in our economy. When the Fukushima  reactor melted down, tens of thousands were displaced. If New York’s Indian Point nuclear power plant blows, ten million people will be displaced. How would that evacuation even begin? Kathryn Miles’ tour of our land is as fascinating and frightening as it is irresistibly compelling.

Recommended by The New York Times

. . . [Bittman writes with] thoroughness and authority. . . -- New York Times (from Amazon)

Fish: The Complete Guide to Buying and Cooking is a book that simplifies, once and for all, the process of preparing fish. Organized in an easy-reference, A-Z format, Fish gives you the culinary lowdown on seventy kinds of fish and shellfish commonly found in American supermarkets and fish stores. Each entry describes how the fish is sold (fillets, steaks, whole, salted), other names it goes by, how the fish should look, and buying tips. Fish begins with general guidelines on how to store, prepare, and cook fish, whether sauteing, frying, grilling, or smoking, and you will find easy-to-follow illustrations of such important basics as how to gut and fillet a fish. Fish also includes up-to-the-minute information on the health benefits of fish in our diet. In addition, there are more than five hundred recipes and variations, all of which use low-fat, high-flavor ingredients to accent the intrinsic natures of the individual fish rather than mask them. And the vast majority of the recipes are ready in less than thirty minutes.

Recommended by The New York Times

...a must have for any serious visitor. (from Amazon)

Most travel titles are put together in a few weeks by visiting travel writers. Revealed Travel guidebooks take over a year to compile and the writers are residents who personally and anonymously review every facet of the island. Their maps are the best you'll find. From restaurants to helicopter companies to scuba to beaches to trails. They see it all and show you the best the island has to offer. They also reveal who's the worst and who to stay away from. All told in a frank, humorous way that keeps the reading fun.

Recommended by The New York Times

Over a decade after its publication, one book on dating has people firmly in its grip. (from Amazon)

Is there a science to love? In this groundbreaking book, psychiatrist and neuroscientist Amir Levine and Rachel S. F. Heller reveal how an understanding of attachment theory-the most advanced relationship science in existence today-can help us find and sustain love. Attachment theory forms the basis for many bestselling books on the parent/child relationship, but there has yet to be an accessible guide to what this fascinating science has to tell us about adult romantic relationships-until now. Attachment theory owes its inception to British psychologist and psychoanalyst John Bowlby, who in the 1950s examined the tremendous impact that our early relationships with our parents or caregivers has on the people we become. Also central to attachment theory is the discovery that our need to be in a close relationship with one or more individuals is embedded in our genes. In Attached, Levine and Heller trace how these evolutionary influences continue to shape who we are in our relationships today. According to attachment theory, every person behaves in relationships in one of three distinct ways: *ANXIOUS people are often preoccupied with their relationships and tend to worry about their partner's ability to love them back. *AVOIDANT people equate intimacy with a loss of independence and constantly try to minimize closeness. *SECURE people feel comfortable with intimacy and are usually warm and loving. Attached guides readers in determining what attachment style they and their mate (or potential mates) follow. It also offers readers a wealth of advice on how to navigate their relationships more wisely given their attachment style and that of their partner. An insightful look at the science behind love, Attached offers readers a road map for building stronger, more fulfilling connections.