Explain how those three ideas shape the thrust of the book.

NPR: Black Athletes Juggle Fame, Social Responsibility

Not long before he died, John Updike spoke eloquently of a book's "edges, " the boundaries that give shape and integrity to a literary work and that for centuries have found their outward expression in the indelibility of printed pages.

WSJ: Nicholas Carr on E-Books

In her much-discussed new book, "Origins: How the Nine Months Before Birth Shape the Rest of Our Lives, " Annie Murphy Paul describes the ever-expanding efforts of researchers to determine how maternal diet, weight, stress, exercise and other factors can influence fetal development.

WSJ: Erica Jong on the Madness of Modern Motherhood