Practically the opposite of a tell-all, J. G. Ballard’s memoir, Miracles of Life: Shanghai to Shepperton, suggests that this is an author who said all he wanted to say in his fiction. First published in the UK in 2008, a year before his death from cancer at the age of seventy-eight, the genial and reflective Miracles of Life adds little to what faithful readers will have already gleaned about the workings of his mind and the contours of his life from various interviews, his provocative science fiction, and most of all from his two autobiographical novels, Empire of the Sun

The new face of boardroom feminism, of course, is Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg. Now, it’s nearly impossible to dislike Sandberg, or to be unimpressed by her wry candor and the indisputable truth of her message. Her new book, Lean In, is a disarmingly self-deprecating career-management advice manual that doubles as a feminist manifesto.

When Hugo Chávez took office as Venezuelan president in 1999, his appeal in the country seemed almost universal. Even many of the old petro-state’s entrenched beneficiaries, the elites with their flats in Paris, London, New York and Miami, welcomed a fresh face to shake up an ossified political system. The poor identified with his dark skin, folksy manner and confidence in speaking truth to power. Here, it seemed, was a leader with the vision, social commitment and broad base to break down the structural barriers that had marginalised so many.

Several crocodiles make appearances in The Rainbow Troops. They are presented without much fanfare, as they pose just one of the everyday dangers of living poor in an Indonesian swamp. When a crocodile blocks his way, Lintang, the unlikely star of his ten-student, one-room schoolhouse, simply hacks a new route to class. He is well-trained in the art of making do—although just barely. When his bicycle chain snaps, he pawns his father’s wedding ring to repair it. His classmates hope the chain will hold, since Lintang’s family has nothing else to pawn, and the bike is his only means of

Lakewood Church senior pastor Joel Osteen’s second book, Become a Better You, reportedly made him $13 million; his latest, I Declare (FaithWords, $22), is now on USA Today’s best-seller list. Osteen came to lead the country’s most mega megachurch by selling a feel-good message about the relationship between positive thinking and a life well lived. “Explosive blessings,” Osteen tells his congregation, come to those who “speak victory.” Osteen fans, who include Oprah Winfrey, Hulk Hogan, and Cher, are instructed to “develop a habit of happiness.” And while some critics quibble with the pastor’s parroting of the prosperity gospel, and others

Emily Bazelon’s intelligent, rigorous Sticks and Stones charts the experiences of a few bullied children and synthesizes the scholarship on how to contain or prevent such harm. She focuses primarily on the stories of three kids: an African-American girl, Monique McClain, who became the target of a few girls at her school in Connecticut, went through a depression and finally switched schools and found happiness; a gay boy in upstate New York, Jacob Lasher, who struggled against prejudice but also enjoyed being a provocateur; and Phoebe Prince, an Irish girl transplanted to a town in Massachusetts, who was bullied atrociously

Former General David Petraeus, now retired from the United States Army and unemployed, had been a professional soldier for thirty years before he commanded troops in combat. The year was 2003, the place southern Iraq. The war to overthrow Saddam Hussein was only a few days old when Petraeus concluded that the scrambling retreat of the Iraqi army was not going to be the whole of the story.

Courage to today’s aspiring rock star. In 1967, The Byrds could afford to be gently cynical about pop-music acclaim. After all, they’d made a fortune by transforming Dylan’s folk song “Mr. Tambourine Man” into a jangly pop tune delivered with a crooked smile. But what should an aspiring rock star do today?