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Philip Short's new biography of French president Francois Mitterrand, A Taste for Intrigue, is a compelling, polished portrait of a slippery, contradictory figure who relished reinventing himself.

Great people do great things, says author Mark Shriver, but they're often not good people. Shriver's new memoir of his father, R. Sargent Shriver, is a loving look at a man he says managed to be both great and good.

Iain Sinclair wishes London had never won the bid for the 2012 Olympic Games. In his new book, Ghost Milk, the longtime East London resident writes about the toll that the massive and pricey development is taking on locals.

The Swedish Academy praised the Chinese writer's work, which "merges folk tales, history and the contemporary." The award is a cause of pride for a government that disowned the only previous Chinese winner of the award, an exiled critic.

Haruki Murakami's 2008 novella about a young student trapped in an eerie library has just been translated into English. Critic Alan Cheuse calls it awfully weird and utterly down to earth.

David Remnick has a nearly impossible task in his new biography of Barack Obama: writing "the most complete account yet" of the most famous man on the planet. The well-written and well-researched book may be ahead of its time; the events in it are so familiar right now that its scholarship may resonate better in 20 years.

The combination of writing talent and juicy material on display in Sean Wilsey's memoir Oh the Glory of It All is what has author Curtis Sittenfeld singing its praises to others. The people and places described "come explosively and thrillingly alive," says the author of Prep.

Heat author Bill Buford finds "his McGee" indispensable — that is, Harold McGee's essential tome On Food and Cooking. "McGee is the most important person alive writing about food," Buford says.

Sportswriter Steve Rushin's memoir of growing up in Minnesota in the 1970s is familiar territory, but Rushin mines it with irony and affection, working hard to capture the look and feel of the era.

Americans once waited in line for the chance to be photographed atop the striped donkeys on this famed tourist strip. But 9/11, the recession and the Mexican drug war have stifled tourism and nearly put the "zonkeys" and their owners out of work. A new push is on to save the historic icons.