Stefan Fatsis is a familiar figure to many as a regular commentator on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. In 1997, when he decided to write about the world of competitive Scrabble, he had no idea where studying the phenomenon would take him. He recounts the story of his experience in Word Freak, a wonderfully engaging narrative about the insular and somewhat oddball world of people who compete at the popular board game.

Many of the characters who play the game cheerfully admit they’re social misfits. They provide rich material for Fatsis. Perhaps because of his prior experience with the game, the author discovered a kinship with their obsession with words. Soon Fatsis was not just covering Scrabble, he was competing himself—and taking the competition seriously.

Fatsis blends a reporter’s eye for detail with a frank admiration of the eccentric players’ abilities, whatever their social shortcomings. He’s particularly awestruck by the attendees of an international tournament, many of whom barely speak English but know thousands of words.

As Fatsis gradually improves at the game, awakening to a new obsession and becoming a top-ranked player, the reader delights in his accomplishment. His thoroughly researched book also details the history of Scrabble—a tale that sometimes plays out like a corporate melodrama. Like Monopoly, another favorite American diversion, Scrabble was developed during the Depression as a means of passing the time. But word of mouth developed into perennial popularity, and the game went from a family-owned business to the property of a giant toy conglomerate.

In Word Freak, Fatsis also offers a few practical tips for living room players and competitors, making it clear that memorizing obscure word lists is the key. He indicates "phonies" or unacceptable words and even provides an appendix of terms he uses in the text that are not acceptable in Scrabble. A wonderfully readable work, Word Freak is a winner—both as a portrait of a subculture and as a journal of a seasoned competitor.

Gregory Harris is a writer and editor living in Indianapolis.

Books a mother can love There’s no better way to celebrate Mother’s Day than with a gift book that immortalizes the maternal role. Joyce Ostin’s Hollywood Moms, a volume of radiant photographs, does just that. In Ostin’s touching tribute to womanhood, some of Tinseltown’s biggest names shed their glamorous facades, and the results are simple, stripped-down pictures that reveal the buoyancy, serenity and joy inherent in the mother-daughter relationship.

Much in the limelight, these mothers have daughters named Coco and Collette, Stella and Chelsea, girls with above-average genes who are, in the end, just regular girls. More than 50 black and white photos feature the likes of dynamic duo Goldie Hawn and Kate Hudson; Madonna and a saucer-eyed Lourdes Leon; Melanie Griffith and Stella Banderas (inheritor of Antonio’s brooding stare). Anecdotes and poems from the moms themselves and Carrie Fisher’s introduction to the book offer fresh insights into the mother-daughter connection. With an intuitive eye, Ostin has captured this classic bond, revealing the reality behind the fantasy the private sides of these very public women. Ostin, a two-time breast cancer survivor, will donate all of the proceeds from Hollywood Moms to cancer research.

“The family is one of nature’s masterpieces,” wrote George Santayana, and his statement is proven true by a volume of stunning pictures called Family: A Celebration of Humanity. Photographers from around the world some of them Pulitzer Prize winners have captured the unit in its many configurations (a family, after all, can be as small as two or as large as two dozen). There are brothers and sisters, fathers and sons, children and pets; there are families in poverty and families who flourish. Spanning the globe, the book touches down in Russia, Mexico, South Africa, Australia and the United States, and the multiplicity of cultures makes for some wonderful visual juxtapositions. Artful, honest and at times, graphic (the photo of a baby, fresh from the womb, its umbilical unwound like a telephone cord, is not a sight for the weak-eyed), Family, the first volume in a series by M.I.L.K. Publishing, Ltd., offers timeless images of humanity at its best. M.I.L.K., an acronym for Moments of Intimacy, Laughter and Kinship, hopes to develop a collection of photographs showcasing diversity in family, friendship and love, and will publish two more books in September.

Two new titles celebrate one of the world’s most famous moms, that icon of family and fashion, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. The woman who founded a modern-day dynasty and helped set style standards throughout the ’60s and ’70s is the inspiration behind Jay Mulvaney’s Jackie: The Clothes of Camelot. Filled with fabulous, Camelot-era photographs, Mulvaney’s book features Jackie’s dreamy dresses, frocks like confections from Oleg Cassini and other designers done in sugary pink, pastel blue and vivid tangerine, clothes fit for a queen or a First Lady. Those classic suits boxy, modest and perfectly chic are included, too. With over 300 photos and sections on Jackie’s fashion influences, her casual wear and her style during the post-Camelot years, this volume presents a well-rounded fashion portrait of one of the White House’s most regal matriarchs. Mulvaney, author of Kennedy Weddings: A Family Album, contributes lucid captions that set the context for the costumes. Dominick Dunne provides the book’s introduction.

Jackie Style by Pamela Clarke Keogh is part biography, part beauty book. Covering the former First Lady’s childhood in New York, her years at Vassar, her time in the White House and her work as an editor at Doubleday, this volume offers a behind-the-scenes look at Jackie’s life while providing advice on how to make her style your style. Jackie’s makeup and fashion ideas are included, along with never-before-seen photos and sketches, and exclusive interviews. Keogh, author of the bestselling Audrey Style, has created a loving tribute, which has an introduction by fashion designer Valentino.

Both Jackie titles are being published to coincide with a May retrospective of Kennedy’s White House wardrobe at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, an exhibit that will commemorate the 40th anniversary of Camelot.

It’s possible that being buried alive is not something you worry about. You may allot more of your fear time to public speaking or flying or impotence. However, it is safe to predict that after you read Jan Bondeson’s new book the thought of being buried alive will become your primal fear. This reviewer has become quite claustrophobic, and you couldn’t possibly force him into a cave, or even a tanning bed.

Buried Alive is a curious work. Jan Bondeson is a physician specializing in rheumatology and internal medicine at a research institution in London. He is also a historian of the quirky byways of medicine and related fields. His thoughtful and entertaining previous book was A Cabinet of Medical Curiosities: A Compendium of the Odd, the Bizarre, and the Unexpected. The subtitle applies equally well to the new book.

Apparently Bondeson has read everything in the world. For Buried Alive he draws upon history, folklore, movies, fiction, poetry, drama. In earlier times, before the precise equipment of our own day, there was considerable controversy over how to determine if someone was, like the Wicked Witch of the East, “really most sincerely dead.” (Well, except when death was obvious in a case of beheading, for example.) Generations were horrified by tales of exhumations revealing the supposedly dead frozen in the act of clawing at the coffin lid. Bondeson recounts the mortuaries that actually advertised alarms in their vaults to alert them to any new arrival who turned out to be still alive.

The anecdotes here are priceless. Hans Christian Andersen lived in terror of awaking inside a coffin and actually carried with him a card that proclaimed I AM NOT REALLY DEAD. Alfred Nobel insisted that special measures be taken to ensure that he really had succumbed to the final antagonist. As always, the arts best reveal our nightmares. The supreme fictional take on this bizarre idea is Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Premature Burial.” It has inspired a number of films, including one by Roger Corman. Wilkie Collins, of The Moonstone fame, wrote a hilariously campy buried-alive saga. Bondeson even finds a buried-alive story by Cornell Woolrich, the man who wrote Rear Window. On this theme, the horrific Dutch film Spoorlos was remade in the U.S. with, naturally, a tacked-on happy ending. Bondeson wraps up Buried Alive with the minimal evidence that many people were actually buried alive and looks at whether it happens nowadays. And he includes a perfect anonymous limerick: There was a young man at Nunhead, Who awoke in a coffin of lead; “It is cosy enough,” He remarked in a huff, “But I wasn’t aware I was dead.”

Think you’re worth a million? Can you guess the identity of this tubular sensation? He’s been a TV personality for nearly four decades. In the 1960s he played second banana to talk-show host Joey Bishop. In the 1970s he hosted two game shows, The Neighbors and Almost Anything Goes, both of which fizzled. Then came a career boost in the late ’80s via a network morning show. More recently, he’s been in the prime-time spotlight, giving away a million dollars to lucky winners. Yes, yes, you’ve got it! It’s Regis Philbin! Come on down! Since last August, when Who Wants to Be a Millionaire debuted on ABC, the avuncular 68-year-old Philbin has become one of TV’s ubiquitous figures. After all, he’s doing double duty. Teamed with the giggly, gregarious mother of Cody and Cassidy on ABC’s Live! With Regis and Kathie Lee, he helps millions of Americans begin their day. Then he’s on again at night, hosting the surprise hit game show, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Airing three nights a week to an audience that averages 28.5 million viewers, the quiz show an Americanized version of a top British series has been credited with giving commercial TV a much-needed shot in the ratings. No wonder there’s a tie-in book. Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? The Official Book from the Hit TV Show purports to deliver Everything You Need to Practice, Play, and Win! In fact, there are several dozen pages devoted to how the show operates: how to become a contestant, what a contestant goes through ( The Details and the Drama ), as well as how the show came to be. By and large, though, this is a book of trivia a series of questions (and answers) that allows readers to test their skills.

Some of the questions are unquestionably goofy. (Which of the following is found inside an Eskimo Pie? A. Whale blubber B. Ice cream C. Caribou meat D. An Eskimo). Some are historical, others pop-cultural. If the book’s topics are eclectic, so are those on the TV show which has become so popular it’s sent TV critics and pundits alike on a quest to figure out why, exactly, there’s so much interest in a game show. Here’s one theory, as espoused by U.S. News ∧ World Report: ÔMillionaire’ is the one show on network television that shows ordinary Americans for better or for worse. Executive producer Michael P. Davies says the appeal lies in the show’s democratic approach to its contestants: We treat everybody the same. The show broadly reflects society. And of course, there is Philbin. As John Carpenter, the show’s first (and much publicized) millionaire put it, I can’t imagine the show without him. He brings his own unique style and just the right amount of drama and humor. He doesn’t try to intimidate you. Reege’s nice-guy demeanor has made him the host with the most a position he candidly relishes. After all, he admits, I’ve never had this kind of attention before. Pat H. Broeske is a producer of the feature film remake of Champagne for Caesar, a spoof about a quiz show.

In its own way, Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point exemplifies its subtitle: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. Gladwell, a staff writer for The New Yorker, tells the stories of seemingly minor incidents that build to matters of great consequence. The tipping point, Gladwell writes, is the moment at which an idea catches on and spreads. He uses the metaphor of epidemics to describe these events, posing the questions, Why is it that some ideas or behaviors or products start epidemics and others don’t? And what can we do to deliberately start and control positive epidemics of our own?

Part of the effectiveness of The Tipping Point lies in the intriguing illustrations Gladwell uses to explain his ideas. Chapters focus on such epidemic catalysts as Paul Revere, cigarettes, the Columbia House gold record advertising campaign, "Sesame Street," Rebecca Wells’ Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, subway shooter Bernie Goetz, teen suicide in Micronesia and Airwalk sneakers.

These examples serve to illustrate Gladwell’s three components of the Tipping Point, which he calls The Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor, and the Power of Context. As diverse as these topics are, Gladwell manages both to maintain the specificity of each example and apply it usefully to his Tipping Point theories. The Bernie Goetz case, for example, illustrates what Gladwell calls the Power of Context, which argues that the psychological or sociological backgrounds of Goetz and the youths on the train have less to do with what happened than their environment. Gladwell argues that the eventually historically significant altercation had everything to do with the message sent by the graffiti on the walls and the disorder at the turnstiles. The Power of Context says you don’t have to solve the big problems to solve crime. Instead, cleaning up the subway system can help.

The Tipping Point alternates between daunting and heartening in what it asks its readers to do and understand; as Gladwell writes, What must underlie successful epidemics is a bedrock belief that change is possible. That faith is often elusive. After reading Gladwell’s book, however, and comprehending exactly what Paul Revere’s ride and the Columbia House advertising campaign have in common, the world around us seems eminently ripe for tipping for the better.

Eliza McGraw teaches English at Vanderbilt University.

Viva Las Vegas! Las Vegas. The name inspires a hybrid image, half Disneyland and half Sodom and Gomorrah. It is the fastest-growing city in the U.S., its population having boomed from 400,000 in 1980 to more than a million now. As four new books attest, Vegas is also a magnet for the imagination. Inevitably the authors focus on the four-mile stretch of casinos called the Strip, but along the way they address many other aspects of the Industry as Las Vegas residents refer to gambling including entertainment, prostitution, organized crime, and law enforcement.

Let’s move from the narrowest focus to the broadest. Pete Earley, the investigative reporter who wrote The Hot House about Leavenworth, and also published exposes about the Aldrich Ames and John Walker spy cases, has a new book, Super Casino: Inside the New Las Vegas (Bantam, $26.95, 0553095021). He explores everything from legendary Las Vegas promoters such as Bugsy Siegel and Howard Hughes to the astonishing success of recent family-oriented entertainment facilities.

Several of Earley’s stories demonstrate the hypnotic pull the city exerts on residents who try to escape. One security guard tells the story of his experiences during the tragic fire that raged through the MGM Grand Hotel in 1980. Afterward, traumatized, he and his wife moved to Florida to flee the memories, but finally they returned because they missed the twenty-four-hour excitement. Andres Martinez covers some of the same territory from a completely different point of view in 24/7: Living It Up and Doubling Down in the New Las Vegas. Martinez gave himself a month to lose the $50,000 his publisher had given him to chronicle a gambling spree. Along the way he wrote a vivid, you-are-there account of his adventures, one day per chapter. Like Paul Theroux, Martinez seems part fascinated anthropologist and part happy-go-lucky adventurer. It’s an appealing combination, and makes for a personal take on an impersonal town. Unlike the other Vegas books described here, 24/7 is also extremely amusing.

Inevitably, the most varied of these volumes is an anthology, The Real Las Vegas: Life Beyond the Strip (Oxford, $30, 0195130707), edited by journalism professor David Littlejohn. Fourteen vivid chapters by as many writers explore such topics as gambling, organized crime, the real estate boom, and locals who decry their home town’s reputation. For example, the chapter Law and Disorder details the countless scam artists who trail the nouveau riche foolish enough to flaunt their wealth. Skin City follows a limo driver who caters to whorehouse clients and acts as surrogate uncle to the prostitutes themselves; then it explores the strip joints of the city.

Broader still in scope is David Thomson’s new book, In Nevada, which bears the ambitious subtitle The Land, the People, God, and Chance (Alfred A. Knopf, $27.50, 0679454861). You’ll recognize Thomson’s name from his several previous books, including Rosebud, his biography of Orson Welles, and Beneath Mulholland, a lively tour of Hollywood history. From early nuclear testing to recent theological battles, he prowls his self-assigned turf with scrupulous attention. He refutes those who consider Vegas hell on Earth: Hell is rebuke, torture, and eternal punishment for those who have sinned. Las Vegas may be founded on a paradox, or a trick, but the idea that you will play and strive and then lose is not hellish. For many of us, it’s a profound and absorbing metaphor for life. Thomson mentions that, because he normally writes about film, people couldn’t understand why he was writing about Nevada. If I sometimes seem to concentrate on film, why, really, it’s just a way into life, and words, and wondering what you can believe. For Thomson, as for the authors of these four books, that is precisely what Las Vegas is a way into many other things that seem to converge in the near-mythical city that rises from the desert like a neon mirage.

Michael Sims is the author of Darwin’s Orchestra (Henry Holt).

Viva Las Vegas! Las Vegas. The name inspires a hybrid image, half Disneyland and half Sodom and Gomorrah. It is the fastest-growing city in the U.

S., its population having boomed from 400,000 in 1980 to more than a million now. As four new books attest, Vegas is also a magnet for the imagination. Inevitably the authors focus on the four-mile stretch of casinos called the Strip, but along the way they address many other aspects of the Industry as Las Vegas residents refer to gambling including entertainment, prostitution, organized crime, and law enforcement.

Let’s move from the narrowest focus to the broadest. Pete Earley, the investigative reporter who wrote The Hot House about Leavenworth, and also published exposes about the Aldrich Ames and John Walker spy cases, has a new book, Super Casino: Inside the New Las Vegas. He explores everything from legendary Las Vegas promoters such as Bugsy Siegel and Howard Hughes to the astonishing success of recent family-oriented entertainment facilities.

Several of Earley’s stories demonstrate the hypnotic pull the city exerts on residents who try to escape. One security guard tells the story of his experiences during the tragic fire that raged through the MGM Grand Hotel in 1980. Afterward, traumatized, he and his wife moved to Florida to flee the memories, but finally they returned because they missed the twenty-four-hour excitement. Andres Martinez covers some of the same territory from a completely different point of view in 24/7: Living It Up and Doubling Down in the New Las Vegas (Villard, $25, 0375501819). Martinez gave himself a month to lose the $50,000 his publisher had given him to chronicle a gambling spree. Along the way he wrote a vivid, you-are-there account of his adventures, one day per chapter. Like Paul Theroux, Martinez seems part fascinated anthropologist and part happy-go-lucky adventurer. It’s an appealing combination, and makes for a personal take on an impersonal town. Unlike the other Vegas books described here, 24/7 is also extremely amusing.

Inevitably, the most varied of these volumes is an anthology, The Real Las Vegas: Life Beyond the Strip (Oxford, $30, 0195130707), edited by journalism professor David Littlejohn. Fourteen vivid chapters by as many writers explore such topics as gambling, organized crime, the real estate boom, and locals who decry their home town’s reputation. For example, the chapter Law and Disorder details the countless scam artists who trail the nouveau riche foolish enough to flaunt their wealth. Skin City follows a limo driver who caters to whorehouse clients and acts as surrogate uncle to the prostitutes themselves; then it explores the strip joints of the city.

Broader still in scope is David Thomson’s new book, In Nevada, which bears the ambitious subtitle The Land, the People, God, and Chance (Alfred A. Knopf, $27.50, 0679454861). You’ll recognize Thomson’s name from his several previous books, including Rosebud, his biography of Orson Welles, and Beneath Mulholland, a lively tour of Hollywood history. From early nuclear testing to recent theological battles, he prowls his self-assigned turf with scrupulous attention. He refutes those who consider Vegas hell on Earth: Hell is rebuke, torture, and eternal punishment for those who have sinned. Las Vegas may be founded on a paradox, or a trick, but the idea that you will play and strive and then lose is not hellish. For many of us, it’s a profound and absorbing metaphor for life. Thomson mentions that, because he normally writes about film, people couldn’t understand why he was writing about Nevada. If I sometimes seem to concentrate on film, why, really, it’s just a way into life, and words, and wondering what you can believe. For Thomson, as for the authors of these four books, that is precisely what Las Vegas is a way into many other things that seem to converge in the near-mythical city that rises from the desert like a neon mirage.

Michael Sims is the author of Darwin’s Orchestra (Henry Holt).

You may have thought the species extinct since their habitat has vanished, but author Kathryn Leigh Scott is here to tell you otherwise. The Bunny Years: The Surprising Inside Story of the Playboy Clubs: The Women Who Worked as Bunnies, and Where They Are Now is a veritable Vindication of the Rights of Bunnies, and a tribute to the women who lived the tail. Scott, a former Bunny herself, remembers fondly her years in the Playboy Clubs and offers profiles of over 200 women who worked there during its 25-year history. The list will surprise you. Former bunnies include a Congressional candidate, a midwife, a multi-millionaire businesswoman, a renowned doctor, and celebrities not to mention women’s rights activist Gloria Steinem. The author could well have subtitled the book "Gloria Steinem Was Wrong." Scott, exceedingly proud of her role as Bunny, takes Steinem, evidently the Paul Revere of Bunnydom, to task for Steinem’s scathing 1963 expose A Bunny’s Tale. Despite the author’s oh-so-earnest prose, this book is just plain lots of fun a romp through an era that, thankfully, has gone by. And the photographs of Bunnies draped over a very groovy-looking Hef, of Bunnies on snow mobiles, in the swingin’ Playboy jet, poolside are priceless.

The words "club hopping" now have a whole new meaning. Reviewed by Katherine H. Wyrick.

For Star Trek fans Attention all Trekkies and those who know and love them: The Star Trek Encyclopedia: A Reference Guide to the Future has landed. If you have a Star Trek fan on your list, this is the book. This edition, compiled by some enterprising folk, boasts 128 new pages to reflect the ever- expanding Star Trek universe and includes almost as many entries and illustrations as the Milky Way has stars. It is the most comprehensive Star Trek reference available, a mothership of a guide that no hard-core fan will want to be without.

Give ’til it hurts You’ve made big travel plans for the summer, and then you receive the call: Aunt Agnes, Cousin Curtis, and the rest of the family have rented a big house near the beach, and everyone is expected to be there for the month of July. Sigh . . . Guess where you’ll be spending your summer vacation? You need a little pick-me-up gift for yourself, under the circumstances. What gift doesn’t require a security deposit, seven-day advance purchase, or a Saturday night stay? Why, books, of course! Photographer Jeffrey Kraft’s exquisite photographs of Parisian cubbyholes and artifacts are not intended to entice one to visit the city; rather, his Literary Paris (Watson-Guptill, $18.95, 0823028305) is meant for those who have already been. The images are meant to inspire a memory from a time that has passed; this is not a fancy collection of tourists’ snapshots. Kraft has arranged his remembrances alongside excerpts from literary works by authors who stayed in Paris for extended periods of time. Kraft has captured the glimpse, the detail, the moment, rather than structures and sites. He offers an idea of what remains in the mind and heart, even years after the visit itself has ended. A wonderful gift for the Francophile in your life.

Ben Jonson said, He was not of an age, but for all time. He was, of course, speaking of his friend William Shakespeare. Children’s book author Aliki has written and illustrated William Shakespeare and the Globe (HarperCollins, $15.95, 006027820X), which describes not only Shakespeare’s life, work, and times, but even acknowledges visionary Sam Wannamaker, who spent years resurrecting the Globe. The book is designed much like a script, with acts and scenes and characters. An interesting add-on is the list of words and expressions, complete with illustrations, credited to Shakespeare; for example, sweets to the sweet and hush were apparently invented by the Bard himself. Seems we’ve been quoting Shakespeare without realizing it! Cities like Paris and London must make use of every tidbit of soil that can be found; as acreage diminishes in our growing world, green thumbs everywhere are striving to be more and more creative with their craft. Artisan has published Window Boxes: Indoors and Out ($27.50, 1579651240) with this in mind. Authors James Cramer and Dean Johnson offer fragrant, beautiful, and useful options for the, uh, land-challenged. Cramer and Johnson offer optional locations (who says a window-box is limited to being wooden, square, and outside?) and year-round planting options (a thriving garden in January?) With this book, the decision is no longer how to create a miniature garden, but rather how many miniature gardens you can create. Soil sold separately! Of course, if we’re talking land for land’s sake, Antarctica has land to spare. It’s been 85 years since Ernest Shackleton and the 27-member crew of the Endurance set out to cross the Antarctic on foot. Less than 100 miles from its destination, the Endurance was caught in an ice pack and was badly damaged. For over 20 months, the crew (along with 69 sled dogs) was marooned, but no lives were lost. Two books commemorate this remarkable true story of adventure and perseverance. First, there’s Knopf’s The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Expedition ($29.95, 0375404031), a sophisticated account of the expedition. There’s also Ice Story: Shackleton’s Lost Expedition (Clarion, $18, 0395915244), which may be better-suited to younger explorers. Both books feature expedition photographer Frank Hurley’s photographs and offer a chronological summary of this death-defying journey. Hurley started the expedition with professional equipment, but his final shots were taken with a pocket camera. Endurance author Caroline Alexander, in association with the American Museum of Natural History, carefully researched this volume, complete with some of Hurley’s photographs that had not been published previously. Ice Story author Elizabeth Cody Kimmel presents the journey in storybook format, but the information is accurate and anecdotal. Both books would make great gifts for anyone who has a taste for adventure and hopeful endings.

Agnes and Curtis decide that the grown-ups need to take the children to the waterpark which happens to be 50 miles away for the day. Fifty miles can seem like 500 without Fun on the Run: Travel Games and Songs (Morrow Junior Books, $17, 0688146600). Brimming with silly stories, limericks, brain teasers, and songs, this book helps to fill travel time without batteries or messy cleanup. Familiar songs and games such as The Ants Go Marching and Hangman are included, but Fun on the Run contains nearly 125 pages of other games and songs that can be a part of any trip. If you still confuse Darth Vader with Darth Maul, fear not; Dorling Kindersley has published two books that will help you keep the prequel and the original trilogy straight: Star Wars Episode I: the Visual Dictionary and Star Wars Episode I: Incredible Cross Sections ($19.95, 078943962X). Like their predecessors (or would it be their descendants?), these books are designed to keep facts, characters, and plots straight. Archaeologist David West Reynolds, an obvious choice for the author, approaches this much like he did his previous Star Wars works. One feels as if he is on an archaeological dig or scientific study of another world. May the source be with you!

Give ’til it hurts You’ve made big travel plans for the summer, and then you receive the call: Aunt Agnes, Cousin Curtis, and the rest of the family have rented a big house near the beach, and everyone is expected to be there for the month of July. Sigh . . . Guess where you’ll be spending your summer vacation? You need a little pick-me-up gift for yourself, under the circumstances. What gift doesn’t require a security deposit, seven-day advance purchase, or a Saturday night stay? Why, books, of course! Photographer Jeffrey Kraft’s exquisite photographs of Parisian cubbyholes and artifacts are not intended to entice one to visit the city; rather, his Literary Paris (Watson-Guptill, $18.95, 0823028305) is meant for those who have already been. The images are meant to inspire a memory from a time that has passed; this is not a fancy collection of tourists’ snapshots. Kraft has arranged his remembrances alongside excerpts from literary works by authors who stayed in Paris for extended periods of time. Kraft has captured the glimpse, the detail, the moment, rather than structures and sites. He offers an idea of what remains in the mind and heart, even years after the visit itself has ended. A wonderful gift for the Francophile in your life.

Ben Jonson said, He was not of an age, but for all time. He was, of course, speaking of his friend William Shakespeare. Children’s book author Aliki has written and illustrated William Shakespeare and the Globe (HarperCollins, $15.95, 006027820X), which describes not only Shakespeare’s life, work, and times, but even acknowledges visionary Sam Wannamaker, who spent years resurrecting the Globe. The book is designed much like a script, with acts and scenes and characters. An interesting add-on is the list of words and expressions, complete with illustrations, credited to Shakespeare; for example, sweets to the sweet and hush were apparently invented by the Bard himself. Seems we’ve been quoting Shakespeare without realizing it! Cities like Paris and London must make use of every tidbit of soil that can be found; as acreage diminishes in our growing world, green thumbs everywhere are striving to be more and more creative with their craft. Artisan has published Window Boxes: Indoors and Out ($27.50, 1579651240) with this in mind. Authors James Cramer and Dean Johnson offer fragrant, beautiful, and useful options for the, uh, land-challenged. Cramer and Johnson offer optional locations (who says a window-box is limited to being wooden, square, and outside?) and year-round planting options (a thriving garden in January?) With this book, the decision is no longer how to create a miniature garden, but rather how many miniature gardens you can create. Soil sold separately! Of course, if we’re talking land for land’s sake, Antarctica has land to spare. It’s been 85 years since Ernest Shackleton and the 27-member crew of the Endurance set out to cross the Antarctic on foot. Less than 100 miles from its destination, the Endurance was caught in an ice pack and was badly damaged. For over 20 months, the crew (along with 69 sled dogs) was marooned, but no lives were lost. Two books commemorate this remarkable true story of adventure and perseverance. First, there’s Knopf’s The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Expedition ($29.95, 0375404031), a sophisticated account of the expedition. There’s also Ice Story: Shackleton’s Lost Expedition (Clarion, $18, 0395915244), which may be better-suited to younger explorers. Both books feature expedition photographer Frank Hurley’s photographs and offer a chronological summary of this death-defying journey. Hurley started the expedition with professional equipment, but his final shots were taken with a pocket camera. Endurance author Caroline Alexander, in association with the American Museum of Natural History, carefully researched this volume, complete with some of Hurley’s photographs that had not been published previously. Ice Story author Elizabeth Cody Kimmel presents the journey in storybook format, but the information is accurate and anecdotal. Both books would make great gifts for anyone who has a taste for adventure and hopeful endings.

Agnes and Curtis decide that the grown-ups need to take the children to the waterpark which happens to be 50 miles away for the day. Fifty miles can seem like 500 without Fun on the Run: Travel Games and Songs (Morrow Junior Books, $17, 0688146600). Brimming with silly stories, limericks, brain teasers, and songs, this book helps to fill travel time without batteries or messy cleanup. Familiar songs and games such as The Ants Go Marching and Hangman are included, but Fun on the Run contains nearly 125 pages of other games and songs that can be a part of any trip. If you still confuse Darth Vader with Darth Maul, fear not; Dorling Kindersley has published two books that will help you keep the prequel and the original trilogy straight: Star Wars Episode I: the Visual Dictionary ($19.95, 0789447010) and Star Wars Episode I: Incredible Cross Sections. Like their predecessors (or would it be their descendants?), these books are designed to keep facts, characters, and plots straight. Archaeologist David West Reynolds, an obvious choice for the author, approaches this much like he did his previous Star Wars works. One feels as if he is on an archaeological dig or scientific study of another world. May the source be with you!