Life and Work

Sony Chairman Norio Ohga is also an orchestra conductor; World Bank President Sir James Wolfensohn is a former member of the Australian fencing team. Using these examples and others, David Heenan—a former Citicorp exec and one-time captain in the Marine Corps—explains the importance of having a second vocation in order to realize one's passions in Double Lives: Crafting Your Life of Work & Passion for Untold Success. Heenan offers "20 keys to a double life," a set of rules anyone can use, whether they're pursuing a second "life" or not (e.g., "learn from failure," "listen to your heart" and "reinvent yourself"). (Davies-Black, $24.95 256p ISBN 0-89106-167-3; Sept.)

Through her work observing Americans' work habits, psychotherapist Ilene Philipson found that people increasingly look to their jobs for self-worth and a sense that they're connected to something larger than themselves. Work is "colonizing our emotional lives," she writes, and in Married to the Job: Why We Live to Work and What We Can Do About It, she shares stories of people who seek to fill the self-worth void by working until midnight and having a social world that revolves around their colleagues. It's important not to become overattached to your job, Philipson says, and she shows readers how to see that there's more to life than work. Agent, Peter Ginsberg. (Free Press, $24 288p ISBN 0-7432-1578-8; Sept. 5)

Keeping a Chin Up

Offering a tongue-in-cheek approach to living well, quiz show host and former White House speechwriter Ben Stein has written How to Ruin Your Life. Asserting that "failure is often a virtual road map to success—in reverse," Stein tells readers, "[f]ollow these rules and you're guaranteed disaster. Avoid them, and you're on the high road to achievement...." He proceeds to explain how to "make yourself useless," "be a slob," "convince yourself you're all that matters" and "act like the world owes you." If ignored, his advice is sound and realistic, and may be the perfect way to push recent grads or other impressionable readers in the right direction. (Hay House, $12.95 144p ISBN 1-56170-974-3; Oct.)

Viewers of the motivational television series It's a Miracle will quickly snatch up It's a Miracle: Real-Life Inspirational Stories Based on the PAX TV SeriesIt's a Miracle. Selected by Emmy Award—winning actor Richard Thomas, the pieces in this volume deal with a teenager's recovery from a prom-night car accident, a man's recurring nightmare that ends up helping him save a woman's life, and a couple's fortune in finding a baby girl to adopt. All the stories are true and have appeared on the show. (Delta, $10.95 paper 272p ISBN 0-385-33650-0; Aug. 27)

Conari Press cofounder M.J. Ryan admits that while it's easy to be grateful for sun, rain and good food, it's much harder to practice gratitude in intimate relationships. But adding gratefulness to a relationship can help remind people why they fell in love in the first place, fuel happiness and even deepen love. In Attitudes of Gratitude in Love: Creating More Joy in Your Relationship, Ryan (Attitudes of Gratitude) presents a multitude of brief essays on not taking love for granted, ditching feelings of resentment, the benefits of relationship gratitude and giving in order to receive. The book's boxy shape and colorful cover make it an appropriate gift. (Conari, $12.95 paper 208p ISBN 1-57324-765-0; Aug.)

Funny Business

Mass e-mails. Telemarketers. People who call the Hamptons "the country." Muggers, allergies, teenagers and things that stick to the soles of your shoes. In 101 Damnations: The Humorists' Tour of Personal Hells, edited by Michael J. Rosen (Mirth of a Nation), writers and humorists take quick, hilarious swipes at the things that drive them crazy. From Kurt Andersen's one-paragraph consideration of "the weird remarks between silence and praise," to Andy Borowitz's dismissal of the phrase "and all that good stuff," to Onion writer Tim Harrod's list of things he simply hates ("Reality TV, Tailgaters, Hangnails... Cartoons that Look Distinctive but not Expressive... Cheap Wristwatches), this collection is sure to please curmudgeons, cynics, Luddites—and average fed-up Americans—everywhere. (St. Martin's/Dunne, $16.95 256p ISBN 0-312-28480-2; Aug. 5)

Peter Novobatzky and Ammon Shea, the gleefully naughty authors of Depraved English and Insulting English, combine their two guides to the puerile side of our popular tongue into one salty volume, efficiently titled Depraved and Insulting English. Sure, the words—mome, limberham, encopresis—are good, but what's better are the authors' usage examples, which demonstrate a mischievous exuberance. Explaining a particularly intense form of voyeurism, the authors write: "Being struck suddenly blind would have taxed any man, but for Mr. Bigelow, with his acute scopophilia, it smacked of divine vengeance." (Harcourt/Harvest, $13 paper 272p ISBN 0-15-601149-2; Aug.)

In the Aftermath of War

"The plan was designed to completely destroy the German economy, enslave millions of her citizens, and exterminate as many as 20 million people": John Dietrich, who served six years in the Defense Intelligence Agency, takes a hard, revisionist look at American policy toward Germany after WWII in The Morgenthau Plan: Soviet Influence on American Postwar Policy. Charting its origins, development and brief implementation, the author argues that the secretary of the treasury's plan for the demilitarization of Germany "thoroughly reflected" Roosevelt's opinions on postwar strategy (and that the president may have bribed Churchill to sign off on it); that the Soviet Union was the plan's sole beneficiary; and that the plan had far greater effects than anyone involved cared to admit. (Algora [www.algora.com], $28.95, 198p ISBN 1-892941-91-0; paper $21.95 -90-2; July 15)

In Indictment at The Hague: The Milosevic Regime and Crimes of the Balkan Wars, Norman Cigar (Genocide in Bosnia), who teaches at the U.S. Marine Corps Command and Staff College, and law professor Paul Williams (American University) join forces to examine the evidence for the former Serbian president's responsibility for crimes against humanity, as well as the culpability of his associates. They draw on documents from U.N. commissions and the Hague Tribunal (there are over 150 pages of reproduced reports, charges and letters) as well as a strong understanding of international law and precedents set by the Nuremberg trials. (New York Univ., $24.95 339p ISBN 0-8147-1626-1; July)

July Publication

In 1996, freelance lab rat and activist Robert Helms, under the nom de plume Guinea Pig Zero, began to publish a zine with the same name; in Guinea Pig Zero: An Anthology of the Journal for Human Research Subjects, he gathers together a few dozen contributions (many of which he penned) exploring "this dark little corner of modern science from the subject's own viewpoint." From Donno's tale of going bonkers in a sleep-deprivation study, to Beth Lavoie's discussion of the various poisons to which soldiers in the Gulf War were exposed, to Helms's history of a 1935 test subject strike, these are strange and frightening stories that may make our trust in the medical establishment seem naïve. (Garrett County Press [www.gcpress.com], $14.95 paper 248p ISBN 1-891053-84-1)