What it is about today’s society that gives fathers so much disrespect, especially around Father’s Day? On Mother’s Day, our opposite numbers get flowers and jewelry and candy and sentiment, but on our day we dads get shirts that don’t fit, underwear, gag gifts and goofy cards. It’s those attempts at humor that really hurt, mainly because they’re usually true. I present to you a case in point: Richard Jarman’s Smooth Operators: The Secrets Behind Their Success, a look at men’s fashions of the 1970s and ’80s, told with an almost straight face. Jarman’s motivation is not to humiliate every man who lived through those decades (though he’s wildly successful in this), but to come to terms with the way his newly divorced father acted and dressed during that time. Evidence abounds in the advertising of those years; the scary part, for me, is that I know these guys heck, I was trying to be these guys! This droll little book illustrates our decades-long fashion faux pas, and as someone who lived through that time and who committed some of the same fashion atrocities (polyester, mutton-chops, platform shoes), I find this book downright embarrassing! So will your dad.

There’s no need to feel guilty sipping a margarita while sunning yourself if you’re reading Hannah Keeley’s Total Mom Makeover, since you’ll be coming home renewed and ready to follow this fast-paced, feisty guide to female empowerment. Despite the daunting task of being mom to seven children, Keeley’s mantra is thriving during motherhood, not merely surviving the adventure. She structures her program in pyramid fashion, with the bottom base being Week One: Starter Mom where exercises are geared to teaching you how to develop a vision, how to make every motion and moment count, how to speak your way to success, and how to develop a winning attitude. Her six-week jump-start program includes steps that will eliminate toxins from your diet, clutter from your home, and boredom from your sex life. Her highly motivational guide is a call to action. Whether playing with your kids or romancing your husband there is no better time than the present. So do it now. At the end of week six, your total mom self will be well on her way to experiencing life to the fullest.

The Rough Guide to Shopping With a Conscience by Duncan Clark and Richie Unterberger is probably the most comprehensive and up-to-date consumer guide of its kind. While the book covers all the historic cornerstones of ethical shopping, like the NestlŽ and Exxon boycotts, much of its information is up-to-the-minute or even into the future. For instance, it touts a barcode scanner that you take to the store to scan a product for information on its origin, the working conditions of the employees who made it, its company’s environmental record, etc. Ethical companies and small-footprint products are conveniently listed in pop-out sidebars alongside their evil, earth- and soul-destroying corporate twins. All this is spun in Rough Guide’s trademark brisk, contemporary prose, and though the writers seem, at times, emotionally distant from their subject, that may contribute to the book’s enormous credibility, especially for readers who might be a little wary of progressive Cassandras. Lynn Hamilton writes about environmental issues from Tybee Island, Georgia.

It’s no secret that celebrities glow and look glam because teams of beauty experts follow them around. The Handbook of Style, bound in faux croc, is everywoman’s chance to even the field. As told to Francine Maroukian and Sarah Woodruff, the handbag-sized, illustrated guide poses common and slightly obscure questions to beauty and fashion insiders, from makeup artists, skin specialists and hair stylists, to clothing designers, jewelers, magazine editors and consultants. The result is like sitting next to Jeanine Lobell of Stila Cosmetics, Mireille Guilliano (French Women Don’t Get Fat), Annoushka Ducas of Links of London, and Donald J. Pliner at a dinner party you’ll learn how to create a smoky eye, choose the perfect black dress or white shirt, deal with a blemish, travel in style, become a hat person and spot a comfortable, sexy shoe. Now, if only a financial coach could reveal how to pay for it all over coffee. Deanna Larson is a writer in Nashville.

Looking appropriate as you age, while not giving in to stretch pants, low-rider jeans and scrunchies, is a challenge taken up by Christine Schwab in The Grown-Up Girl’s Guide to Style. Schwab, a fashion contributor to Live with Regis and Kelly, Oprah, Today, Entertainment Tonight and E! , believes that women over 40 should look sexy and vital and feel confident, and she offers her simple principles for achieving these goals in major style areas including clothes (disaster #1: nakedness); hair (goodbye, hairspray and helmet head); face and skin (white Chiclet teeth take years off, and so does a light tinted moisturizer); and makeup (more brush, less trowel). Schwab also covers the aging inner self, discussing brain health, menopause, maintaining marriages and stepfamilies and other relationships, and fitting exercise and sex into a changing lifestyle. The do and don’t photos scattered throughout make our own less-than-graceful aging a little more tolerable, too.

Deanna Larson is a writer in Nashville.

The inside counts, but the outside packaging can make all the difference between a date or a job and a pass over. Hollywood clothing designer and stylist Bradley Bayou, who has dressed Oprah, Halle Berry, Salma Hayek, Queen Latifah and Eva Longoria, believes that every woman can look sexy in the right clothes. The Science of Sexy goes beyond the typical pear, apple, hourglass, rectangle body advice, creating 48 sub-types based on height and weight, as well as silhouette shape. Bayou then sends readers to different color-coded fitting rooms where they find illustrated outfits and detailed information on their blessings (every body has ’em), the new you looks and what not to wear ( Really. I mean it ), covering casual, work and formal occasions. Sexy is balanced, well-fitting clothes that train a spotlight on those blessings, according to Bayou, and his guide helps retrain a woman’s eye to recognize them.

Deanna Larson is a writer in Nashville.