1. Under Antarctic Ice, by Norbert Wu and Jim Mastro (University of California, $29.95). Wu’s rare and resplendent color photographs reveal an undersea world most of us will never see firsthand, all shot through with an icy blue light.
2. Between a Rock and a Hard Place, by Aron Ralston (Atria, $26). He’ll be known forever as the mountaineer who, trapped by a fallen boulder while climbing, cut off his own arm to escape. Ralston reads from this memoir October 1 at Cody’s.
3. Killing Superman, by Mary-Rose MacColl (Allen & Unwin, $11.95). In this stirring Australian novel, a former high-school athlete and mental patient recounts his lifelong search for the Vietnam-vet father who may or may not be dead.
4. Lads, by Dave Itzkoff (Villard, $23.95): Straight outta Princeton, Itzkoff started a career in the cutthroat tits ‘n’ glitz fantasyland of men’s magazines, in this hilariously self-deprecating memoir that bares all about both Details and Maxim.
5. Kicking Depression’s Ugly Butt, by Robert Westermeyer (Quick Prints, $14.95). A psychologist compiles workable nuts-and-bolts strategies, most of them based on cognitive-behavioral therapy, in this quirkily illustrated self-helper.
