Jack-of-all-trades Hoffman (Bitches on a Budget) compiles the tips and tricks she's learned in her careers as marketer, mother, and writer to produce an all-in-one guide to frugal parenting. Written to other mothers in tone, but not gender-specific in content, this valuable tome offers suggestions on how to survive the giant-plastic-stuff phase of infancy (buy a used stroller, but a new crib) and paying for college, though the bulk of her advice is focused on the many years between. With two of kids out of college and on their own, she confidently dispenses advice on topics ranging from clothing choices to sex-ed, but manages to do so in a chatty, friendly voice that is never overbearing. Food is a large part of any family's budget, and Hoffman discusses MyPlate, organics, and "smart shopping" with equal ease. She also provides a brief overview of financial management basics including budgeting, insurance, and credit cards, and her advice about helping kids distinguish "wants" from "needs" is astute and practical. In addition to everyday tips, Hoffman also offers tried-and-true insights into developing strong relationships with one's children--in the end, "a smart mom never loses sight of what her kids really need: unconditional love, safe boundaries, and room to play." Informative, entertaining, and applicable, this is a must-read for "smart mamas" and papas. (Mar.)

Luery, an investigative television reporter, has written a baseball travelogue bound to be the envy of any father and son fans of the game. Luery and his son, Matt, spent parts of their springs and summers over a 16-year span traveling to every Major League Baseball stadium. Along the way, the self-professed "baseball buddies" argued over music, free speech, and sex, first exploiting and then accepting each other's quirks and shortcomings. Luery includes interviews with ballplayers he met on the road, including former Los Angeles Dodger Maury Wills, and he incorporates a few observations about each ballpark. His main focus remains his evolving relationship with Matt, who by book's end has grown into a witty young man bonding over beers with his dad at ballpark No. 32, Target Field in Minneapolis; Matt's epilogue offers his own revealing take on this father-son journey. Often falling prey to overeager prose and contrived dialogue, Luery also strikes out with simple solecisms and sentences that read like term-paper extracts. But a glossary of baseball terms and several pages of family-friendly activities and places to stay in every Major League city make this book a useful travel guide as well. While not quite the "Road Map to a Winning Father/Son Relationship" as claimed by the subtitle, this is a heartwarming and entertaining read. (Mar.)

Reading Gerard's well-crafted first essay collection is like spending time with an easygoing yet erudite uncle, with whom you're happy to sit around on the front porch on "lazy afternoons…drinking beers and [speculating]" on all manner of personal and historical oddments and occurrences. The book ranges widely in subject matter, the devastation visited upon the North Carolina coast by Hurricane Fran in 1996 to an investigation into whether or not a North Carolina man who died in 1846 really was, as he intermittently claimed to be, the exiled favorite general of Napoleon Bonaparte. As regards the latter, Gerard (Secret Soldiers) doesn't commit to either side; rather he uses it as an opportunity to meditate on the idea of being an imposter, and why so many people fall for them: "Maybe it just makes a better story somehow. Maybe in one sense we are all imposters, wishing for a more glamorous backstory to our lives than the one we have." He demonstrates some unique linguistic brilliance, painting vivid, pullulating scenes of "summer skies choked with thunderheads" and "golden afternoon light cooled by the deep verdure of swaying evergreen trees." However, when this sort of thing goes on for too long, the proceedings can get tedious. But Gerard has a mostly sharp instinct for when to take his leave, and he mostly does so at the right time to leave his reader looking forward to the next visit. (Mar.)

"From ancient to modern times, the size of ships, the weight of obelisks, the height of cathedrals, the span of bridges…and the limits of everything have been defined, at least temporarily, by failure," Petroski writes in the first chapter of this sequel to 1992's To Engineer is Human. Petroski, Professor of Civil Engineering and History at Duke University, uses relatable metaphors to discuss concepts such as metal fatigue and how buildings, bridges, and roads deteriorate, in addition to the lengths engineers have gone to in an effort to mitigate catastrophe. Though his focus here is primarily on bridges, Petroski extends his analysis to include the sinking of the Titanic, the mid-flight explosion of TWA Flight 800, the Challenger tragedy, the Y2K computer programming crisis, and the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Each has its own unique set of human, mechanical, and engineering failures, and Petroski does a terrific job of identifying and communicating not only what went wrong, but what was learned from the failure and how that knowledge has since been put into practice. Fellow engineers and armchair scientists will get the most out of the book, but even the layman will find Petroski's study to be accessible, informative, and interesting. Photos. (Mar.)

In the 1930s, Beile Delechky was a young woman growing up in the Jewish shtetl of Kavarsk, Lithuania, where she and her brother Moishe were the unofficial town photographers. Just three years before the city's Jewish inhabitants were destroyed by the Nazis in 1941, Delechky left Kavarsk for America, bringing with her hundreds of photographs. Compiled by Buonagurio, and supplemented with his own commentary as well as passages of Delechky's journals and poetry (both photocopied and translated), these photographs show a vibrant Kavarsk, "a typical Lithuanian market town and...microcosm of Jewish life" as it was between the two World Wars. Given that most of her friends and family would die at the hands of the Nazis, the excerpts of her writings are often portentously chilling: "There is hope that the snow will come to an end," she writes, "There is hope that once again we will behold the green grasses on which we can lie down and rest." Many photographs depict Delechky's friends and family engaged in quotidian activities, like swimming in the Sventa River, posing in the snow, putting on plays, and harvesting apples. The final pages tell the story of Delechky's journey to America, including her passage through Nazi Germany on Kristallnacht. She eventually settled in San Francisco, but never returned to Lithuania. This collection is a beautiful preservation of Jewish life. Photos and maps. (Mar.)

In this entertaining and thought-provoking study, Ramsland (The Forensic Psychology of Criminal Minds) explores the phenomenon of sudden insight--"a dramatic brilliance that floods the mind and clicks into place"--which she calls the "snap." She posits that these seemingly spontaneous leaps are really the result of preparation--Ramsland explains that the process leading up to a "snap" is divided into three parts: "scan," "sift," and "solve." Scanning involves observing one's surroundings and accurately remembering what one has experienced; sifting is allowing the subconscious mind to process and make connections; and the solution arrives when these are combined with the will to succeed and the ability to allow intuition to guide decision-making. Each section contains a myriad of examples of creative invention from people as diverse as Mozart; Percy Spencer, the inventor of the microwave oven; and J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series. Also included are brief reports of neurological studies that indicate that there is unique brain activity that correlates with a snap. Ramsland gives mental exercises to encourage these snaps, along with advice on brainstorming, looking outside of one's discipline for answers, and--most importantly--having a passion for the work at hand. In order to seize your "Aha!" moment, "it just takes ‘seeing more'"--and reading this--"and being ready to roll." (Feb.)

In his newest (after Fireflies, Honey, and Silk), Waldbauer delves into the nitty-gritty survival techniques of Nature's less-cuddly creatures. He introduces readers to the basics of insect life in language for the layman, describing the myriad ways in which insects have evolved to evade predators, whether by way of disguises, mimicry, or "Hiding in Plain Sight." Waldbauer presents other intriguing bug survival tactics that seem almost unbelievable: a "species of bombardier beetle…[blasts] a noxious spray at the temperature of boiling water…from the tip of its abdomen directly in the toad's mouth." Interesting--and occasionally disturbing--information is given about what are all-too-often household pests: the familiar "American cockroach...can tell light from dark even if the eyes on their heads have been covered with black paint." Though Waldbauer writes about critters many readers would rather ignore, he deftly crafts a pleasurable and fascinating page-turner. But despite the fact that the collective weight of Earth's insects is greater than that of "all the other animals…combined," Waldbauer assures us that the earth will not be overrun by the crafty bugs of this book, for the predators have evolved too, and those that can read know that to be forewarned is to be forearmed. Illus. (Feb.)

The first of Magri's works to be translated into English is an exhaustive history of 20th-century communism around the world. Magri, who passed away in November 2011, devoted his life to politics and the Italian Communist Party, or PCI (Partito Comunista Italiano). He offers a unique viewpoint on recent history, and shares information that will be new to many Western readers. Magri begins with a review of important historical moments, discussing the events and implications of the Russian Revolution, the rise of the Communist Party, the Cold War, and the Marshall Plan, all of which Magri believes led to a "bipolar balance of power, involving peaceful competition between two systems and a limitation of military conflict to regional frameworks." In its heyday--the 1960s--, the PCI "was part of an international movement that governed a third of the world, within which it had finally achieved autonomy." But 50 years later, it inexplicably "wrote itself out of history, with the aim of making a ‘fresh start'" that never came to be. Magri goes on to explain the internal conflict that ultimately led to the defeat of the PCI--"at the polls and in its relationship to the masses"--, changes in world politics in the 1980s-1990s, and the congressional swan song of the PCI in ‘91. Those with a strong interest in modern history or political movements will find this densely detailed work compelling and thought-provoking. (Jan.)

Lashinsky, a Senior Editor-at-Large at Fortune magazine, investigates the core of Apple before, during, and after the reign of the late Steve Jobs, not only to discover how the company works and if its success can be replicated, but also to speculate about Apple's future.  In a conversational style that pulls no punches, Lashinsky outlines salient factors that concurrently contribute to Apple's success and deviate from standard business practice. Apple's unique organizational structure places secrecy and detailed design at the fore while using a top-down management style which allows the entire company--including the upper echelon--to focus on creating and marketing elegant products. Apple eschews typical industry practices such as the principal of general management, transparency, or the use of focus groups--the lack of which, Lashinsky claims, sends the message: "We like the dog food so much we eat it ourselves. You won't be disappointed."--even to the point of favoring design over cost-effective production. Lashinsky compiles information about the notoriously secretive company from a variety of sources including media and interviews, though few of the interviewees agreed to be identified. Readers--especially entrepreneurs, technophiles, and businesspeople--seeking an inside peek at the world's most valuable company will find Lashinsky's investigation enthralling and enlightening. (Jan.)

Diagnosing modern society as emotionally empty, Kaufmann, a professor of sociology at the University of Paris, provides a brief but exhaustive survey of love in Western Europe and America. Hoping to reconcile love's two warring aspects--agape, or universal love; and passion, its singularizing antithesis--Kaufmann seeks to create an alternative to the emotionless culture that our market economy has formed. As the influence of these two forms of love wax and wane throughout history, from Plato to Romanticism to feminism, Kaufman explains how Reason began to supplant love during the Enlightenment and, corrupted by capitalism, transformed from rational individualism into the calculating individualism that has poisoned love. Rejecting the possibility of any effective political revolution based upon love, Kaufmann lays out the golden rule for personal relationships--you must put the happiness of your partner before the happiness of others--and muses on the joys and trials of fulfilling everyday love. Given this book's epic historical scope and relative brevity, many historical movements are glossed over too quickly, at times to the detriment of the argument, but Kaufmann shines when he breaks from highly abstracted history to analyze the importance of cultural ephemera like Tristan and Isolde, classic Hollywood cinema, and personal ads à la Craigslist's "Missed Connections," giving the reader the peculiar feeling that, ultimately, Kaufmann's survey is both too long and too short for its own purposes. (Jan.)