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Byline: Rodger Brown If you can't figure out how to work your smartphone, that's a 'skills gap.' But it's a gap easily closed. Just ask an expert for help. It's [...]

NONFICTION Consider the Eel. By Richard Schweid. University of North Carolina Press. $24.95. 181 pages. The verdict: Fascinating. Richard Schweid, author of earlier encomiums to such varied natural wonders as [...]

NONFICTION Gracefully Insane: The Rise and Fall of America's Premier Mental Hospital. By Alex Beam. Public-Affairs. $26. 288 pages. The verdict: A guilty pleasure. At Bedlam, the British asylum for [...]

The Wildest Ride: A History of NASCAR (Or How a Bunch of Good Ol' Boys Built a Billion-Dollar Industry Out of Wrecking Cars). By Joe Menzer. Simon & Schuster. $24. [...]

NONFICTION A Primate's Memoir: A Neuroscientist's Unconventional Life Among the Baboons. By Robert M. Sapolsky. Scribner. $25. 304 pages. The verdict: A rollicking memoir. When Robert Sapolsky was 21, he [...]

NONFICTION Augusta, Gone. By Martha Tod Dudman. Simon & Schuster. $23. 255 pages. The verdict: Clear, powerful and hopeless. Misery and despair are staples of literature, but traditionally the low [...]

FICTION Mrs. Hollingsworth's Men. By Padgett Powell. Houghton Mifflin. $20. 134 pages. The verdict: Good, clean writerly fun. Padgett Powell had some fun with this one, letting rip with a [...]

NONFICTION On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. By Stephen King. Scribner. $25. 288 pages. (Audio: Simon & Schuster. $35 CD or cassette, unabridged. Read by the author.) The verdict: [...]

NONFICTION Noodling For Flatheads: Moonshine, Monster Catfish, and Other Southern Comforts. By Burkhard Bilger. Scribner. $24. 253 pages. The verdict: A nonjudgmental trip among the eccentrics. Like a recipe for [...]

Rodger Lyle Brown NONFICTION My War Gone By, I Miss It So. By Anthony Loyd. Atlantic Monthly. $25. 321 pages. The verdict: A troubling, voyeuristic portrait of war. When Anthony [...]

Rodger Brown NONFICTION Denmark Vesey: The Buried History of America's Largest Slave Rebellion and the Man Who Led It. By David Robertson. Knopf. $23. 202 pages. The verdict: A fascinating [...]

Rodger Brown NONFICTION Isaac's Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History. By Erik Larson. Crown. $25. 323 pages. The verdict: You DO need a weatherman to [...]

Rodger Brown NONFICTION The Age of the Bachelor: Creating an American Subculture. By Howard P. Chudacoff. Princeton University Press. $29.95. 341 pages. The verdict: A new respect for the great [...]