On these frigid evenings, Orion and the bright stars of winter dominate the southern sky. Some of the brightest winter stars in and around Orion form a large and easily found pattern called the "Winter Hexagon." (01/30/2012)

Do you have a lot of half-made Lego sets and stray Lego bricks lying at the bottom of your toy bin? A new book can help you give your old bricks a new life. "The Lego Ideas Book" is full of cool creations, from monsters and spaceships to castles and cars -- all made from random Lego pieces, not specific sets. (01/30/2012)

These two splendid new works of fiction have enough in common that they must be reviewed together, even at the risk of underplaying their strengths in the name of journalistic trend-mongering. The facts are that Jane McCafferty and Stewart O'Nan live in Pittsburgh and their books have just been released, days apart, by big-shot New York publishers. (01/29/2012)

Joshua Cody waits until about two-thirds into his fierce and fevered memoir "[sic]" to die. Not that checking out isn't a big deal, but Mr. Cody has bigger ideas on his mind. One of them was to write a memoir about cancer that didn't make him sick. (01/29/2012)

The title alone will grab you, once you're cognizant of the fact that it is nonfiction. This is not a book about some guys straw-purchasing AR-15s, converting them to machine guns, and selling them to American survivalists or far-off rebels. This is the story of the big boys. (01/29/2012)