Also of interest ... in occupational hazards

The Essential Engineer

by Henry Petroski

(Knopf, $27)

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Henry Petroski wants engineers to get a little more respect, said Harry Levins in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. While scientists win the prizes and admiration, he says, we all rely on the people who turn ideas into machinery—and we’ll need them even more to overcome such challenges as water shortages and global warming. At times, Petroski’s arguments “tiptoe toward tedium.” But he can convince you that even speed bumps are worthy of a closer look. “The man has yet to write a bad book.”

The Room and the Chair

by Lorraine Adams

(Knopf, $26)

Though the unhappy newsroom of a national newspaper figures prominently in Lorraine Adams’ second novel, said Louis Bayard in The Washington Post, the former Post reporter is up to far more than mere score settling. As a cub reporter collects the clues that tie a local plane crash to a secret military program in Afghanistan, Adams’ “rather literary style” sometimes becomes a distraction. But she is “fascinated by how information conceals the world from us,” and her obsession becomes ours.

My Times in Black and White

by Gerald M. Boyd

(Lawrence Hill, $27)

It’s “genuinely sad” to read how lonely the late Gerald Boyd felt while he was the No. 2 editor at The New York Times, said Tim Rutten in the Los Angeles Times. Boyd grew up poor in St. Louis and became “one of his generation’s most accomplished journalists” before his brief run as the paper’s first black managing editor was derailed by a reporter’s serial plagiarism. When Boyd died, in 2006, he apparently was still bitter; his race, it seemed to him, had been a burden at every turn.

Broker, Trader, Lawyer, Spy

by Eamon Javers

(Harper, $27)

Eamon Javers’ study of corporate espionage would have been more up-to-date had it explored cyber­attacks from China, said John J. Fialka in The Wall Street Journal. Javers instead offers “a meandering tour” that reaches back to 19th-century Pinkerton detectives before finally arriving at today’s tactics. One contemporary example: When an executive chats with analysts in a conference call, the listeners often include ex-CIA interrogators trained to detect exaggerations and lies.