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Water is indeed everywhere-especially bottled water. High-end restaurants now have water lists in addition to wine lists, water bars are opening up around the globe, and gourmet markets are selling dozens of different varieties of domestic and imported bottled waters. Consumers are beginning to recognize that bottled water, like wine, has a unique identity that is defined by its origin.

Fine Waters introduces readers to the epicurean delights of water, sharing the ins and outs of the characteristics that provide various waters with their unique flavors, as well as recommended food pairings, stemware suggestions, and optimum serving temperatures for enjoying both still and sparkling waters. The book also provides tasting notes for more than 100 of the world’s best bottled waters. Produced in full color, with photographs throughout, Fine Waters is the first guide to this up-and-coming food trend.

DR. MICHAEL MASCHA is a food anthropologist, culinary expert, and proprietor of finewaters.com.

Take Control of Your Destiny!
 
From the good luck provided by shamrocks, rabbits’s feet, and horseshoes to the misfortune caused by broken mirrors, black cats, and umbrellas opened indoors, our lives are filled with signs and superstitions that guide our destiny and influence our fate.
 
Fortunately, Field Guide to Luck can help you recognize dozens of influential charms, dates, sayings, and symbols wherever you encounter them. Learn what objects are on your side, which practices are best avoided, and where these curious beliefs come from. This indispensable guide reveals their fascinating origins and offers tips for putting them into practice. With Lady Luck on your side and a lucky penny in your pocket, you’re sure to lead a charmed life!

Like Moses delivering forth the Ten Commandments, Henry Owings brings music fans The Rock Bible—an insider’s guide to living the rock ’n’ roll dream. This hilarious rulebook is full of dos and don’ts for musicians, wannabe musicians, and rock fans of all ages. Here’s what The Rock Bible has to say about

Singers: “When you feel like stage-diving, make sure the people in the front row like your music enough to catch you.”

Backstage antics: “Couches at rock clubs have never been cleaned. Think of the crazy things that have been done on these couches, and then proceed at great personal risk.”

Lifestyle: “If you want to die while in a famous rock band, there are four options. 1. Suicide. 2. Car or plane crash. 3. Drug overdose. 4. Murdered by a crazy relative. Just pick one and stick with it.”

Complete with faux-biblical illustrations and parables and essays from comedian Patton Oswalt, drummer Brian Teasley, and professional smartass Andrew Earles, The Rock Bible is a rude and raunchy look at the best and worst of rock ’n’ roll.

Grammy Award winner HENRY OWINGS is the publisher of Chunklet magazine, a no-holds-barred chronicle of the music industry. At various times a DJ, promoter, record producer, and booking agent, Owings has toured with rock bands for nearly a decade.

Babies are the courageous explorers of brave new worlds–so why not name them after the most memorable characters in science fiction? Sci-Fi Baby Names compiles more than 500 distinctive names from movies, books, and television shows into a handy illustrated reference. Choose “James” to honor the captain of the starship Enterprise. Choose “Leia” (or Leah) to honor the sister of Luke Skywalker. Choose “Neo” to salute the ultra-cool messiah from The Matrix. Hardcore fans can go even further with exotic names like “Barbarella,” “Beldar,” and “Tron” (just don’t send us the therapy bills).

Arranged by category for quick reference–with chapters such as Power Names, Feminine Names, and Intellectual Names–Sci-Fi Baby Names is a terrific gift for expecting parents and a wonderful roll call of our favorite science-fiction characters.

ROBERT SCHNAKENBERG loves science fiction so much, he wrote an entire book about William Shatner: The Encyclopedia Shatnerica. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

In the tradition of Quirk’s bestselling Secret Lives of the U.S. Presidents, here are outrageous and uncensored profiles of the world’s greatest writers, complete with hundreds of little-known, politically incorrect, and downright bizarre facts. Consider:

–Edgar Allan Poe was kicked out of West Point Military Academy.
–Louisa May Alcott was addicted to opium.
–W. B. Yeats paid surgeons to transplant monkey glands into his scrotum.
–J. R. R. Tolkien slept in his bathroom.
–Kurt Vonnegut managed a Saab dealership before hitting the big time.

With chapters on everyone from William Shakespeare to Thomas Pynchon, Secret Lives of Great Authors tackles all the tough questions your teachers were afraid to answer: What’s the deal with Lewis Carroll and little girls? Is it true that J. D. Salinger drank his own urine? Why was Ayn Rand such a big fan of Charlie’s Angels? The classics were never this much fun in school!

ROBERT SCHNAKENBERG is a writer living in Brooklyn, New York.

Secret Lives of Great Authors revealed the dirty secrets of Hemingway, Kafka, and Tolstoy. Secret Lives of Great Artists explored the bizarre behavior of Picasso, Matisse, and Monet. Now you can discover the dirty laundry of Beethoven, Wagner, Puccini, and others in Secret Lives of Great Composers-an uncensored biography of the world’s greatest musical geniuses. You’ll learn that

    * Hector Berlioz hatched a plan to kill his ex-fiancee, her lover, and her mother
    * Joseph Haydn had his head stolen by amateur phrenologists days after being buried
    * Richard Wagner dressed in pink women’s lingerie
    * Arnold Schoenberg suffered from a debilitating case of triskaidekaphobia-a fear of the number 13
    * And much more!

With outrageous stories ranging from the ridiculous (Mozart loved fart jokes) to the even more ridiculous (the absentminded Mahler frequently stirred his tea with cigarettes), Secret Lives of Great Composers is a music lesson you’ll never forget.

ELIZABETH LUNDAY is a journalist specializing in music, architecture, and art. She writes the “Masterpieces” column for mental_floss magazine and lives in Forth Worth, Texas.