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Washington Post national security reporter Dana Priest's book Top Secret America looks at the top-secret intelligence and counterterrorism network created after Sept. 11. "No one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, [or] how many programs exist within it," she says.

Two years after opening his award-winning Chicago restaurant Alinea, chef Grant Achatz was diagnosed with tongue cancer. He describes losing and regaining his taste in Life, on the Line. "My palate developed just as a newborn," Achatz says. "I don't recommend it, but I think it made me a better chef."

Although the economy has been growing since mid-2009, the pace has been too slow to absorb the nearly 14 million people without jobs. Today, 46 million Americans receive the federal government's help when buying food, which is roughly 15 percent of the population.

A rebel onslaught Thursday on a neighborhood where snipers loyal to Moammar Gadhafi had holed up in residential buildings left bullet-riddled bodies in the streets, houses in flames and sewers running red with blood. Gadhafi, on the run with his regime in tatters, still tried to rally his followers to kill the rebels.

During Ramadan, Muslims fast from sunup to sundown — so the nighttime meals have to be good. Food writer Yvonne Maffei offers some suggestions for observing Ramadan when it falls in August — which means long, hot days without food or water.

As a former foreign correspondent who's visited 82 countries and traveled nearly 2 million miles, Nicholas Kralev has felt the pain of air travel — but he's also learned its secrets. He shares his tips in Decoding Air Travel.

A widowed Florida rabbi saw the cost of his insurance coverage rise by 38 percent this year. So he decided to look for a new, younger spouse to help him bring costs back down.

Helen Schulman tells the story of a New York family's fall from grace in This Beautiful Life. Critic Maureen Corrigan says the novel is a parent's nightmare — a cautionary tale about what happens when hormones meet the Internet.

Sometimes, when walking Brooklyn's streets, it doesn't feel as if its literary past is haunting. Rather, its literary soul is still alive and pulsating. Brooklyn is a world unto itself and a writer's enclave. Journalist and critic Evan Hughes has written a literary biography of the leafy borough.

Award-winning novelist Robert Stone hung out for many years with Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters. He recounts the group's cross-country road trips and experiences taking hallucinogenic drugs in his memoir, Prime Green.