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Can beauty be found in rubble? The answer is yes if you are street photographer Joel Meyerowitz. Meyerowitz wormed his way past hostile border police and fire chiefs to document, on a nearly daily basis, the Ground Zero cleanup after the World Trade Center attacks. In Aftermath, Meyerowitz not only documents the arduous task of removing dangerous rubble from the site, he also honors the grindingly difficult work of the crews who steadily labored at the task though they were often emotionally overcome in the process. Among Meyerowitz’s photographs is one of Pia Hoffman, a crane operator who insisted that all recovered bodies be treated with the same honor and ceremony awarded to police and fire department personnel. When the body of a civilian woman was uncovered, Hoffman lowered her crane’s claw over the victim until officials agreed that she would be removed under a U.S. flag, accompanied by an honor guard. While our consciousness is permanently engraved with select network media images of 9/11 falling towers and sobbing family members the intense security surrounding Ground Zero during its cleanup has, for the most part, prevented the public from seeing other, grittier images such as the slurry wall underlying the trade centers, bent and flayed construction beams, and the workers who participated in cleanup. Meyerowitz’s nine-month photo journal may be the only detailed photo archive of the damage aftermath. As such, his Aftermath, a large-format photography book, with four-page pull-out panoramic photos, exists as an important historical artifact as well as an emotional journey back to the terrorist attacks of 2001.

I blame the minivan, says journalist Christopher Noxon, referring insouciantly to the brainstorm behind Rejuvenile: Kickball, Cartoons, Cupcakes, and the Reinvention of the American Grown-up. Faced with a growing family, he morosely swaps his single-guy ride for a family-man van, a vehicle with the power to prompt a rejuvenile reckoning. Rejuvenile is Noxon’s playful reckoning with a curious sociological phenomenon, a new breed of American adult who cultivate(s) tastes and mind-sets traditionally associated with those younger than themselves. Many rejuveniles wait longer to move from their childhood homes, marry and start families and give up skateboarding. As Noxon’s breezy, contrarian reportage shows, they are obsessed with playtime, Popsicles, Legos and Disneyland anything that can revive the wondrous, fun and carefree qualities of childhood. Noxon, admittedly driven by his own inner child, wants to know if this trend is a refreshing new take on adulthood, or rank irresponsibility. With the focus of a toddler entranced by a bright, shiny object, Noxon examines rejuvenalia’s roots (blame it on Peter Pan), how rejuveniles work and play and the toys they choose to play with (mouse ears, anyone?), and their social and parenting skills (or lack thereof). Especially intriguing chapters are devoted to the toyification of American culture and the influence of Uncle Walt Disney.

Rejuvenile is an amusing read but lacks heft as an important sociological study; the author seems more fascinated with the quirkiness of his topic than in plunging into the depths and illusions that motivate this current mode of human behavior in America. The book’s final chapter is a conflicted, inconclusive wheeze on the future of the rejuvenile grown-up (oxymoron, anyone?), which Noxon tries to shore up with erudite references to Rousseau, Einstein, Montagu, and existential query: On balance, are we born good or bad? The jury hopefully peopled with mature, clear-thinking grown-ups is still out on that one. Alison Hood is a writer in San Rafael, California.

Crackling with the author’s edgy wit and wisdom, Caitlin Flanagan’s To Hell with All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife is a collection of essays examining the key trends, issues and stereotypes surrounding today’s wives and mothers. Through reports on topics like nannies, white weddings and the demands of housekeeping, she traces the evolution of the maternal role in American society. Contrasting the past specifically the 1950s with the present, she provides unique insights into the domestic arts and how our culture’s perception of them has changed.

In Drudges and Celebrities: The New Housekeeping, an ironic examination of Martha Stewart and the packaging of the perfect household, Flanagan writes, almost any project Stewart cooks up is less daunting than the one it is meant to replace: keeping a family together, under one roof, home. Throughout the book, she mourns the passing of traditional domesticity, wherein the measure of a home was found in the woman who ran it. A frequent contributor to The Atlantic Monthly and The New Yorker, Flanagan is herself a mother and a wife, and she brings experience and intimacy to these essays. Flustered mothers and frustrated wives will find just what they need here: a little camaraderie.