The First Total War by David A. Bell

Bell suggests that though in the self-involved current age, we tend to think about the century just past as the one that caused all the trouble, it was the Napoleonic era that laid the groundwork for war as we would all come to know it.

Good Food Tastes Good by Carol Hart

Where the self-help market was once awash in love books -- how to fall in, how to fall out, how to survive or thrive, we are now deluged with treatises dwelling on another unavoidable human pastime: eating. 

An Uncertain Inheritance edited by Nell Casey

An Uncertain Inheritance is not the sort of book one gives as a stocking stuffer. Instead, you give it to the friend who is caring for her demented parent. The book may not make her feel better -- nothing will -- but it will make her feel less alone.

Alone in the Kitchen With an Eggplant edited by Jenni Ferrari-Adler
Cooking and dining alone need not be so fraught. We need not step into the kitchen each night dragging parents, weight woes, or money pains with us. It is possible to eat well alone without being Julia Child or depending on Saltines.

An Incomplete History of World War II by Edwin Kiester Jr.
An Incomplete History of World War II does not pretend to be an exhaustive tract on the history of this devastating world conflict. Yet this may be the most enticing aspect of this work and what makes it so readable.

Grave Matters by Mark Harris
Don’t dig the conventional funeral industry? As Mark Harris describes in his new book, Grave Matters, you don’t have to wind up six feet under.

Avoiding Cancer One Day at a Time by Lynne Eldridge and David Borgeson
The authors have done a fine job of explaining how our bodies function within our environment and what we can do to minimize our chances of getting cancer.

Loyal Comrades, Ruthless Killers by Slava Katamidze
Loyal Comrades, Ruthless Killers details the implementation and history of the Soviet Union’s secret service, its countless abominations and the crooked moral and spiritual quality of the men and women who formed it.

Happier by Tal Ben-Shahar
Even if you ultimately don’t feel more joyous, you probably won’t begrudge having read Happier. It’s enjoyable.

The Pentagon: A History by Steve Vogel
The Pentagon still stands: strong, defiant and magnificent in its own unadorned way. Not bad for a building Vogel tells us, was "conceived over a long weekend" and constructed in a "slapdash" rush but ultimately has "proven itself one for the ages.

Above the Falls by John Harris
John Harris is at home blending fiction and fact, plot and archival research. In this case, an unsolved 1936 murder case in the Canadian North is the touchstone for the book.

The Strange Case of Hellish Nell by Nina Shandler
The last person in Britain to be tried as a witch was a Scottish medium. Nell ran afoul of authorities when she started to channel spirits who knew way too much about Britain's military secrets during World War II. Author and psychologist Nina Shandler tells the story.

Land of Lincoln by Andrew Ferguson
Abraham Lincoln has been dead and buried for over 140 years, but that hasn't stopped a lot of folks from thinking about him -- a lot. That's the central theme of Land of Lincoln: Adventures in Abe's America, an exploration of Lincoln's presence in modern American culture.

The Mandala of Being by Richard Moss
Moss believes that self-inquiry is the key to self-empowerment. He entreats us to meditate, to "go back the way that we have come" to earliest childhood.

Paradise Mislaid by Jeffrey Burton Russell
Paradise Mislaid is not solely an exposition of the history of heaven. The book also presents a powerful indictment of all contemporary forms of crass physicalism.

Altruistic Armadillos, Zenlike Zebras by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson
While some readers might prefer a more scholarly look at these 100 creatures, Masson's approach works very well. A conversation, as he says, about animals. His impressions, the rich benefit of his reading and the eloquence of his thoughts.

Remembering the Montreal Expos by Danny Gallagher and Bill Young
Flaws aside, Remembering the Montreal Expos is the only game in town for those hungry fans of a team that was sometimes thrilling, sometimes disappointing, by always Nos Amors.

Enough Blood Shed by Mary-Wynne Ashford with Guy Dauncey
Anyone familiar with Dauncey's work won't be surprised to discover that, in spite of the dire state of the world and the seemingly inevitable human political struggle for power and dominance, there is a cheery, predominant undertone of optimism in Enough Blood Shed.

The Way We Eat by Peter Singer and Jim Mason
The Way We Eat should come with a label: "Warning, reading this book could disrupt your life." The authors hope to effect change in the way most people shop for food, and they're convincing.

Being Caribou by Karsten Heuer
The author records five months trekking behind the Porcupine caribou herd on their 27,000-year-old migratory route: a 61,500 kilometer round trip from Old Crow to the herd's calving grounds in the midst of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.