IMPERFECT BIRDS BY ANNE LAMOTT "Life with most teenagers was like having a low-grade bladder infection. It hurt, but you had to tough it out," writes Anne Lamott in her seventh

novel, _Imperfect Birds_. Lamott's latest installment about her long-running mother-daughter pair, Elizabeth and Rosie Ferguson, as they grapple with multiple A-list issues — addiction,

authority, autonomy and approval — will no doubt provide solace to many more. Rosie is the bright kid who lost her father in a drunken accident at age 4 in Lamott's second novel,

_Rosie_. She resurfaced on the Northern California junior tennis circuit as a 13-year-old being stalked by a possible pedophile in _Crooked Little Heart_. Now, at 17, she's an A student

ratings than her husband, George W. Bush, had anyone wanted to poll the question in 2008. On TV, the first lady came across as well-read, forthright and loyal to her husband and her country.

And so she is in her autobiography, _Spoken from the Heart_. It takes Laura Welch from her childhood in Midland and El Paso, Texas (where her dad sold auto financing and built homes),

through college years and work as a teacher and librarian, a whirlwind romance with "Midland's most eligible bachelor," and finally to life among one of America's most

prominent families and her years in the post-Sept.-11 White House. Bush is a good storyteller, if prone to casting people and events in black and white: public disaffection or media

criticism of the Bush men is invariably described by her as unfair and unfounded, and she spotlights the surge in Iraq as evidence of the president's unwavering belief in his actions.

464 PAGES, $18, SCRIBNER ------------------------- PACKING FOR MARS: THE CURIOUS SCIENCE OF LIFE IN THE VOID BY MARY ROACH A mission to land humans on Mars would take a minimum of two years

from liftoff to homecoming, but the most difficult engineering problem isn't how we get there — it's what we do on the way. In _Packing For Mars_, Mary Roach writes about the

challenges of sending the glitch-prone human body into space. She would know: As part of her research, Roach flew aboard the "vomit comet," NASA's zero gravity flying

laboratory. "Particularly with a long-term mission," she tells Tony Cox, "you have a tremendous amount of bone loss." Even simple acts like eating, crossing the room or

going to the bathroom can suddenly become incredibly difficult. Boredom is another serious factor. "The scenery doesn't change; you can't go out for a walk," Roach says.

And though some astronauts are pushing for beer in space, zero gravity makes carbonation tricky and prevents burping. According to Roach, "it's very uncomfortable." 336 PAGES,

$15.95, W.W. NORTON & CO. ------------------------- DRIVE: THE SURPRISING TRUTH ABOUT WHAT MOTIVATES US BY DANIEL H. PINK Most of us believe that the more money employees get, the more

motivated they'll be, and the better they'll perform. But in his new book, _Drive_, Daniel H. Pink says that's not true. "There's a lot of research that shows that

if you apply contingent, external rewards on something that's inherently interesting, you can actually extinguish someone's interest in that activity," Pink tells Madeleine

Brand. He also shows how some employers encourage high performance through intrinsic motivation and autonomy, even in jobs typically considered low-skilled, such as customer service call

centers. At Zappos, the online shoe retailer, for example, "they don't time the calls. ... The representatives don't have scripts. Now this seems insane in the world of call

centers. Lo and behold, Zappos is one of the top-rated customer service firms," Pink says. 272 PAGES, $16, RIVERHEAD BOOKS ------------------------- OPERATION MINCEMEAT: HOW A DEAD MAN

AND A BIZARRE PLAN FOOLED THE NAZIS AND ASSURED AN ALLIED VICTORY BY BEN MACINTYRE Early in 1943, Allied forces were massing along the coast of North Africa, preparing to make a push toward

strategically important Sicily, but they needed to convince the Germans that they were aiming somewhere else. The result was the very odd, very successful deception that historian Ben

MacIntyre describes in _Operation Mincemeat,_ in which the dead body of a Welsh laborer who had died from eating rat poison was equipped with false papers, and dropped where the Germans

would find it. If that sounds like something out of a spy thriller, it may be because the idea came originally from Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, in his early days as an assistant

to the head of British Naval Intelligence. Fleming admitted freely that he had lifted the idea from a detective novel he once read. "That's why I love this story," MacIntyre

says. "It starts in fiction, and in a way it really is a case of somebody just imagining their way into reality." 432 PAGES, $15, BROADWAY ------------------------- _CHARLOTTE

ABBOTT EDITS "NEW IN PAPERBACK." A CONTRIBUTING EDITOR FOR _ PUBLISHERS WEEKLY,_ SHE ALSO LEADS A WEEKLY CHAT ON BOOKS AND READING IN THE DIGITAL AGE EVERY FRIDAY FROM 4-5 P.M. ET

ON TWITTER. FOLLOW HER AT @CHARABBOTT OR CHECK OUT THE #FOLLOWREADER HASHTAG__ __._ Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.