What happens when you pair one of America's most-beloved comedians with one of the nation's premier cartoonists? Well, I suppose lots of things could happen -- one thing that did happen, when Steve Martin got together with The New Yorker's Roz Chast, is a new book for young readers called "The Alphabet from A to Y with Bonus Letter Z!"

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A centuries-old Jewish religious book manages to survive into modern times, in the new novel by Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist and novelist Geraldine Brooks. Clues to its provenance come from the wing of an insect, crystals of salt, a single white hair, and what appears to be a wine stain -- each carefully explored in vignettes that Brooks brings to life. Her book is called "People of the Book." [Interview taped at Politics and Prose, Washington, DC]

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Felicia Pearson didn't get off to a very good start in life -- born to a crack-addicted mother in East Baltimore, her childhood was spent in the company of some of Baltimore's toughest characters. Snoop, as she was eventually dubbed, became a "baby gangsta," killed a woman in self-defense at age 15, and wound up in prison. On being paroled, she nearly fell right back into the old, dangerous life, before a chance encounter in a nightclub with a cast member from HBO's gritty series "The Wire." Producers invited her down for an audition, and the rest is history, as Snoop became what's been described as "one of television's most frightening and intriguing villains." Her memoir is called "Grace After Midnight."

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Steve Irwin changed his world. Through a unique ability to connect with all creatures - human and animal - Irwin entertained, inspired, and taught us. His untimely death in 2006, in a fateful encounter with a stingray, stunned us all. His wife Terri is committed to carrying on Steve's legacy. In her book "Steve and Me," she tells their story.

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While Farmer Joe is en route to a Tractor Society Conference a couple of thousand miles away, back at the farm the members of a most unusual underground rock band are preparing to go on tour. Jarrett Krosoczka's book for children, "Punk Farm on Tour," tells the story of the talented Cow, Sheep, Pig, Goat and Chicken.

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Over five decades, book editor Judith Jones has successfully combined her love of literature with a lifelong passion for fine food. Jones became muse to such towering figures as Julia Child and Claudia Roden, among many others, while shepherding her authors' books to the bestseller lists. Now Jones tells her own story, in a memoir called "The Tenth Muse."

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The late Gerald Ford was often much more opinionated than he appeared to be. And funnier, and more gossipy. But he had a public face he kept on, out of respect for others -- even those he disdained -- and respect for the office he held for two and a half years. For sixteen years, however, Ford revealed his private thoughts to a reporter. Veteran journalist Thomas DeFrank had long conversations with Gerald Ford, with the only condition being that they not be published until after his death. That occurred in December 2006, and now DeFrank can tell all. His book is called "Write It When I'm Gone." [Interview taped at Borders, Washington, DC]

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Many have opined that Bill and Hillary Clinton's is a marriage of convenience or expediency. But no, argues a respected biographer, it is a marriage of love - a mutual love of politics. Washington-based Sally Bedell Smith has spoken with dozens of people who know the Clintons well, to untangle the personal, professional, and political aspects of their relationship. Smith's book is called "For Love of Politics."

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A nuclear Iran is something the U.S. and Israel would never tolerate, and in Vince Flynn's new thriller "Protect and Defend," Israel carries out an audacious operation deep inside Iran that leaves a gaping hole in the ground and an Iranian government bent on revenge. That's where Flynn's series hero Mitch Rapp comes in, persuading the president to push Iran over the edge once and for all.

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History has paired television interviewer Sir David Frost and former President Richard Nixon in a way neither may have ever anticipated. A series of landmark interviews in 1977 afforded the disgraced Nixon a means to begin his rehabilitation with the American public. But Frost recalls that the interviews might just as easily have never happened. There were obstacles aplenty, as he tells in his book "Frost/Nixon: Behind the Scenes of the Nixon Interviews."

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Many people follow Biblical rules, starting with the basics, the Ten Commandments. But let's face it, even the most pious among us is unlikely to be able to live by ALL the rules in the Bible. But A.J. Jacobs -- whom last we met after he had read the entire encyclopedia, from A to Z -- decided to give the Bible laws a try. For one full year, he would do exactly what the Bible said to do. His chronicle of that effort is called "The Year of Living Biblically." [Interview taped at Borders, Baileys Crossroads, VA]

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Charlie Brown had to pay Lucy a nickel every time he sought psychological advice. It seems his creator, Charles Schulz, sought some measure of therapy in the beloved comic strip he drew for decades. Now, in the book "Schulz and Peanuts," biographer David Michaelis draws a picture of the artist whose deeply troubled life can be seen in the panels of his cartoons.

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For years, it has been fashionable in some circles to dismiss Christianity and its beliefs as obsolete, discredited, disproven by science, even harmful. So what's so great about Christianity? Scholar and former White House domestic policy analyst Dinesh D'Souza takes on the challenge of defending the faith, in his book called "What's So Great About Christianity."

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How much influence do you have, and would you like to have more? And we're not talking just about influence as a business or political leader. Parents have influence, and just ordinary folks have and use influence. So how DO you get more? Joseph Grenny is one of the influencers at VitalSmarts, which is in the business of training Fortune 500 companies. He's also one of the authors of the new book "Influencer."

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The adventures of Marco Polo are world renowned. His 13th-century trade-diplomatic-possibly-espionage travels to Mongolia and China have become the stuff of legend - in fact, many people think it is just a legend. There's always been doubt that Polo even went to China. Did he go, or did he just pick up other people's stories and sell them as his own? That's just one of the things biographer Laurence Bergreen wanted to know. His book is called "Marco Polo."

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Ever wonder where your clothes come from? Before you say The Gap or Sears or Abercrombie and Fitch, think .. before that. The wholesaler? No, before that. The manufacturer? Yes, but before that, too. Journalist Rachel Louise Snyder takes us to places as diverse as Azerbaijan, Cambodia, New York, and Italy as she traces the progress of a pair of jeans, from cotton farm to retail store. Her book is called "Fugitive Denim."

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Since his debut in 1990, Easy Rawlins has taken his place as one of America's favorite literary characters, in a series of mystery-thrillers by Walter Mosley. The series has followed Easy from the years right after World War Two up through the year in which his latest book takes place, 1967. And now, in "Blonde Faith," Easy is trying to make sense of what his life has become. But the bigger story about "Blonde Faith" is that it may mean the end of the line for Easy.

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If you had exclusive access, for hours at a time over the course of three years, to the Dalai Lama, what would you ask? Journalist Thomas Laird knew exactly what he wanted to do with his unique access to Tibet's exiled leader. With His Holiness as his guide, Laird explores Tibet's history, in the process gaining great insight into science, reincarnation, and the nature of Buddhism. And, of course, a rare glimpse into the life of the Dalai Lama himself. [Interview taped at Borders, Washington, DC]

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How has George W. Bush done as President? What will his legacy be? A new book published by the nonpartisan CQ Press, an arm of Congressional Quarterly, aims to put "Bush 43's" two terms in perspective. One of the three editors of the book is Purdue University political scientist Bert Rockman. The book's called "The George Bush Legacy."

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When journalist Emily Benedek was working on an article for Newsweek on counterterrorism, once of the sources she turned to was a senior Israeli counterterrorism expert. So much of what she learned from him could not be told in the Newsweek article, only in fiction. The result is her first novel, a troublingly-realistic thriller that begins with a series of plane crashes and races toward an ending that could be catastrophic. It's called "Red Sea."

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As the U.S. teeters on the brink of entry into the first World War, a motley group of tuberculosis patients in upstate New York is about to experience world politics on its own little scale, in Andrea Barrett's novel "The Air We Breathe." Poor immigrants are thrown into the same closed community as wealthy businessmen. One of them tries an ambitious social experiment. But soon the fevers of xenophobia and prejudice turn the community into its own brand of battlefield. [Interview taped at Olssons Books & Records, Washington, DC]

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Only boys can be good at math. At least that's what millions of girls have been led to believe. But girls need to hear Danica McKellar's message. McKellar may be best known for her television role as Winnie Cooper on "The Wonder Years," but she also graduated summa cum laude in math from UCLA, and co-wrote a published math theorem. She calls her book "Math Doesn't Suck." [Interview taped at Borders, Rockville, MD]

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Russian Jewish immigrant Lillian Leyb has "endured the murder of her family, the loss of her daughter, an ocean crossing like a death march, intimate life with strangers in her cousin's two rooms, smelling of men and urine and fried food and uncertainty and need." And all of this by the age of 22. But in Amy Bloom's second novel "Away," Lillian faces her most difficult test yet: a journey across 1920s America, for the reunion with her daughter she longs for above everything else.

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You're out of shape. You know it. You see the looks people give you. And you've seen that guy on the TV commercials, the young buff guy who says fitness can be simple. Now, John Basedow has put his formula for fitness in a book for the first time. He says it's a total fitness program that goes way beyond just losing weight. His book is called "Fitness Made Simple."

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Thank you. Amazing, isn't it, the power commanded by two little words? And the life-changing strength of another word, gratitude. Television personality Deborah Norville has long studied the positive effects of gratitude, and why true thankfulness is a blessing for the person who is thankful. Norville's book is called "Thank You Power."

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Hey - you want to know a secret? Who can resist an invitation like that? Apparently there is also a pretty fair number of people who can't resist the opportunity to tell a secret, sometimes a secret they have never told anyone. Maybe a secret they never even openly admitted to themselves. And Frank Warren has solicited, and collected, and lovingly maintains a library of thousands of them. He has shared them since 2005 on his wildly popular blog "PostSecret," and in bestselling books, the latest of which is called "A Lifetime of Secrets." [Interview taped at Borders, Tysons Corner, VA]

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There is a common assumption that underlies almost any discussion of faith in America, and that is the notion that the founding fathers sought to establish a Christian nation, and that we have strayed steadily further from their vision. The new book by historian Garry Wills reveals, however, that the founding fathers were, for the most part, not practicing Christians as we might think of that term today. But that, he writes, turned out to be the greatest blessing religion in America could ever have. Wills' book is called "Head and Heart."

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Vicente Fox was president of Mexico from 2000 to 2006. Fox has remained active and high-profile in his country. His memoir is called "Revolution of Hope." As the son of one of the nation's best-known evangelists, the Reverend Robert H. Schuller, founding pastor of the Crystal Cathedral, Robert A. Schuller could very easily have found himself overwhelmed by the pressure to live up to someone else's notion of what he was supposed to be. But his new book is about finding the unique path God has set for you, and only you. His book is called "Walking In Your Own Shoes." His 1998 book "The Greatest Generation" has helped define America's feelings about the millions who endured the Great Depression and World War Two and who made the country stronger than ever. Now, Tom Brokaw turns his considerable oral-history-telling talents to the Baby Boomers, in "Boom!"

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In the 1960s and '70s, we made impressive progress in restoring the environment, through new laws and initiatives designed to conserve resources and protect earth's ecology. But as they used to say, this is not your father's Buick. The old ways won't get the job done anymore, say two young environmentalists, Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus. They say it's time to set "environmentalism" aside and try something entirely new. Their book is called "Break Through."

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Seven decades on, Margaret Mitchell's "Gone With the Wind" continues to fascinate and captivate readers. Of course, having her book made into one of the greatest movies of all time didn't hurt. But Mitchell never wrote a sequel - indeed, never wrote another book. In 1991 Alexandra Ripley, with the blessing of the Mitchell estate, wrote "Scarlett." But until now, the backstory of Rhett Butler had gone untold. Novelist Donald McCaig gives the Charleston gentleman his due in an authorized sequel called "Rhett Butler's People."

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