Complete book coverage for Oct. 4, 2009

Sloshed, blotto, plastered: so many variations on being inebriated.

In Cuba to post dispatches for an online magazine and act as a guide for Mariel Hemingway, the actress who was born shortly after her grandfather’s death, the author gets a shiny surprise.

A collection of essays and excerpts attempts to put the nation’s psyche into words. It’s a daunting goal, met with uneven success.

A compilation of his reviews reveals a writer who relished going against the grain.

Books by Robert Hilburn, Philip Lopate, Arthur Danto and more.

An unusual arrangement between the 42nd U.S. president and a famed historian has resulted in a splendid political chronicle.

The novelist pities -- and commiserates with -- the sappier, more confused sex in a collection of essays.

National Book Award winner writes about a woman who is incapable of sadness.

Johnson’s selections gauge where we are today instead of predicting where we will be tomorrow.

The Good Soldiers David Finkel Farrar, Straus and Giroux: 284 pp., $26 U.S. Army Lt. Col.

Fiction Weeks on list1.The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown (Doubleday: $25.99) Harvard professor Robert Langdon uses his symbology skills to find a missing Freemason in Washington, D.C.2 2.The Help by Kathryn Stockett (Putnam: $24.95) The lives of a maid, a cook and a college graduate become intertwined while changing a Mississippi town. 17 3.A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore (Knopf : $25.95) A naive Midwestern college coed takes a job as a nanny for a recently adopted toddler.3 4.South of Broad by Pat Conroy (Nan A.

Fiction 1. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson ($14.95) 2.