The World Almanac and Book of Facts (World Almanac Books, $12.99)
The World Almanac has been serving up vital facts and information since 1868. As a reference book, it is essential, informative, and, yes, even entertaining. With more fascinating facts per page than any other almanac and has the authoritative answer to almost every question imaginable, it is a book that belongs on your desk and within easy reach. Whether you want to know the location of the world’s fastest roller coaster, the results of the 2009 World Series, county-by-county election results, or the population, Zip and area codes of Queen Creek, Arizona, it is all to be found in this nifty reference.
In addition to the annual favorites that make The World Almanac one of the best selling reference books in the U.S. year after year, there are notable features in this year’s edition that include the top ten news topics of 2009, the most memorable sports moments of the last decade, swine flu coverage, offbeat news stories, and even a 2009 time capsule that list ten items that symbolize the year 2009 such as the serious $4,500 government program of “cash-for-clunkers” and the silly Jon and Kate traveling circus.

Sweet Thunder: The Life and Times of Sugar Ray Robinson by Wil Haygood (Knopf, $27.95)
Sugar Ray Robinson was born Walker Smith in Detroit in 1921. His early childhood was marked by racial tensions and race riots that pockmarked the Midwest throughout the 1920s and 30s. Eventually he moved with his mother and sisters to Harlem and it was there he discovered his talent for boxing. He held the world welterweight title (1946-51) and the world middleweight title (1950-51) but lost the middleweight title to Randolph Turpin in 1951. He eventually regained it and long the way established himself as a powerful, through often controversial black symbol in a rapidly changing America. From his gruesome six-bout war with Jake “Raging Bull” LaMatta to his popularity in Europe, this highly readable biography documents the very soul of this remarkable man.
Flora Mirabilis: How Plants Have Shaped World Knowledge, Health, Wealth and Beauty by Catherine Herbert Howell with a Foreword by Peter H. Raven (National Geographic, $35)
This handsome book is an absolute joy. You don’t have to be a plant lover to be gob smacked by the more than 200 rare and exquisite illustrations that are scattered throughout this work, in addition to a lively narrative, both documenting how plants have shaped our history.
The text by Catherine Herbert Howell, who holds a master’s degree in anthropology from the University of Virginia, and the foreword by Peter H. Raven, who served as president of the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis for more than 38 years, both add just the right touch to make “Flora Mirabilis” accessible even to the most novice of plant enthusiasts.
Individual plant profiles, each with accompanying time lines, relate the extraordinary roles played by 27 of the plants that have been most critical to world history – from rice to corn, tobacco to rubber – and the impact they had on everything from economics to politics to taste. The contents are broken down into six basic chapters: Origins, prehistory-1450, Date Palm, Wheat, Rice and Olive; Discovery, 1450-1650, Black Pepper, Sugarcane, Maize, Citrus, Tulip; Exploration, 1650-1770, Tobacco, Tea, Coffee, Peppers, Cinchona; Enlightenment, 1770-1840, Tomato, Rose, Grape, Cotton, Apple; Empire, 1840-1900, Cannabis, Rubber, Potato, Opium Poppy, Orchids; and Science, 1900 to present, Bamboo, Yam, Cacao.
Captivating quotes by botanists, poets, and philosophers underscore the importance of each of the featured plants. Comprehensive in content, lavishly illustrated, and extremely interesting, this is nothing less than a celebration oof botanical discovery and a delight it truly is.

The 4-Hour Work Week: Escape 9-5m Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss (Crown, $22)
This book has a title that grabs readers by the scruff of the neck by claiming it really is possible to create a “luxury lifestyle design” by working less, earning more, and living anywhere you like.
According to the author, he has done just that. Ferriss, a guest lecturer at Princeton and author the “The 4-Hour Week,” a New York Times Bestseller when first published in 2007, claims that you can accomplish all this and more if you have the right plan. He adds that he has the right plan and after putting it into use he went from a salary of $40,000 per year, which he earned working 80 hours per week, to making that same amount each month and toiling only four hours each work week.
In his new and expanded edition, he explains how he accomplished that and much more by utilizing a step-by-step guide that he calls a blueprint for success. For example, he shows how to eliminate 50% of your work in 48 hours using the principles of a forgotten Italian economist, and how to trade a long-haul career for short work bursts and frequent mini-retirements. The new edition includes more than 100 pages of new, cutting-edge content such as practical tips and case studies from readers who have doubled their income, along with the latest tools and tricks, as well as high-tech shortcuts, so that almost anyone can live like a diplomat or millionaire without being either.

Growing Up bin Laden: Osama’s Wife and Son Take Us Inside Their Secret World by Najwa bin Laden, Omar bin Laden and Jean Sasson (St. Martin’s Press, $25.99)
Jean Sasson, a New York Times bestselling author, joins Najwa bin Laden, Osama bin Laden’s first wife and mother of seven of his sons and four of his daughters, and Omar bin Laden, his fourth son, to reveal the true story of what it was like to live in the bin Laden household. Najwa, who married her cousin, Osama bin Laden, when she was 15, tells the remarkable story of how she married a gentle, kindly man, the same man who eventually became one of the world’s most hated people.
The fascinating facts in this book include Osama’s disapproval of modern conveniences, including electricity and medicine, and how he put together a plan to toughen up his sons by taking them to the desert without food and water. Also revealed is what he did to prepare his wives and children for “attacks from western powers.” Many myths are dispelled in this book such as the state of Osama bin Laden’s health. According to the authors, Osama’s health is much better than reported and that he suffers only from kidney stones and the recurrences of malaria which he contracted while fighting in Afghanistan against the Soviets. This is the powerful story of a mother and son that provides an extraordinary view of a man hated by so many, yet loved and feared by his family even to this very day.

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