How to Build an Igloo
by Norbert E. Yankielun (Norton, $18)
If you’ve ever built a backyard snow fort, said The Salt Lake Tribune, here’s your chance to improve your game. Norbert Yankielun is a research engineer with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and his “well-written” how-to shares the pile of knowledge he’s accumulated in 15 years of building igloos, drift caves, quinzees, and other snow shelters.
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The Complete Book of Aunts
by Rupert Christiansen with Beth Brophy (Twelve, $20)
The British edition of this quirky compendium would have pleased many an aunt on your gift list, said Alexander Waugh in The Wall Street Journal. This American rewrite is “delightful” in its own way, though tarted up with odes to Spider-Man’s Aunt May, Mayberry’s Aunt Bee, and even a Web-savvy dominatrix who calls herself Aunt Vicki. For aunts allergic to crass pandering, you might want to track down the original edition online.
The Latke Who Couldn’t Stop Screaming
by Lemony Snicket (McSweeney’s, $10)
This “funny fable” about the short but rewarding life of a potato pancake isn’t just a book to remember for Hanukkah 2008, said USA Today. Lemony Snicket’s charmingly deadpan tale will entertain most readers all season long, and might even “trigger family discussions about religious differences.”
Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?
by Leszek Kolakowski (Basic, $20)
“If your New Year’s resolution is to become a better, wiser person,” said William Grimes in The New York Times, keep this miniature hardcover for yourself. Starting with Socrates’ teachings about why humans do evil, philosopher Leszek Kolakowski taps one great thinker after another to address 23 enduring questions. This is intellectual history that fits in your pocket, executed with “admirable clarity and brevity.”
Geary’s Guide to the World’s Greatest Aphorists
by James Geary (Bloomsbury, $20)
Journalist James Geary’s collection of “epigrammatic observations” isn’t the best on the market, said Michael Dirda in The Washington Post. But it is “a wonderful breviary of wisdom, insight, and cynicism.” Especially helpful are Geary’s brief biographies of the figures behind the famous sayings, including the form’s “greatest master,” French courtier François de La Rochefoucauld. His statement that “we are never as unhappy as we think, nor as happy as we had hoped,” encapsulates decades of lessons in love and war.
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Why 'faceless bots' are interviewing job huntersIn The Spotlight Artificial intelligence is taking over a crucial part of recruitment
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Who will win the battle for the soul of the Green Party?An ideological divide is taking root among the environmentalists
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The Week Unwrapped: Why are we watching the ocean floor?Podcast Plus, what can we learn from a football club on the brink? And which jobs will fall to AI first?
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Also of interest...in picture books for grown-upsfeature How About Never—Is Never Good for You?; The Undertaking of Lily Chen; Meanwhile, in San Francisco; The Portlandia Activity Book
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Author of the week: Karen Russell
feature Karen Russell could use a rest.
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The Double Life of Paul de Man by Evelyn Barish
feature Evelyn Barish “has an amazing tale to tell” about the Belgian-born intellectual who enthralled a generation of students and academic colleagues.
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Book of the week: Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis
feature Michael Lewis's description of how high-frequency traders use lightning-fast computers to their advantage is “guaranteed to make blood boil.”
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Also of interest...in creative rebellion
feature A Man Called Destruction; Rebel Music; American Fun; The Scarlet Sisters
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Author of the week: Susanna Kaysen
feature For a famous memoirist, Susanna Kaysen is highly ambivalent about sharing details about her life.
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You Must Remember This: Life and Style in Hollywood’s Golden Age by Robert Wagner
feature Robert Wagner “seems to have known anybody who was anybody in Hollywood.”
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Book of the week: Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire by Peter Stark
feature The tale of Astoria’s rise and fall turns out to be “as exciting as anything in American history.”