COOLER HEADS. By William Harlan Richter. Small Fry Books, Santa Monica, Calif. 2010. 333 pages. $14.95, softcover.

“It’s not enough to be a songbird, this world will work you to the bone,” sings musician Dan Waters on Sergeant Sparrow magazine’s new compilation CD. The latest edition of the magazine, just out with the disc included, has taken up the plight of artists working in today’s business-minded creative milieu.

Sergeant Sparrow magazine and its eponymous record label were designed to create space for artists, musicians and writers to show their work regardless whether they have been shown, signed or published professionally.

By NINA TARNAWSKY

Social networking Web sites such as Google+, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn have become a part of the equation when it comes to the job hunt. That last statement may serve as yet another source of distress for those looking for work but feeling less than internet savvy. Thankfully, the new book Web 2.0 Job Finder by Brenda Greene and Coleen Byrne gives even the most technologically phobic jobseeker a solid foundation in how best to utilize the internet.

Bright Waters, Shining Tides: > Reflections on a Lifetime of Fishing, paintings and essays by Kib Bramhall, Vineyard Stories, Edgartown, 2011. 96 pages. Hardcover, $29.95.

I know of three painters who are also enviably good writers, all of them Vineyard men by birth or choice.

AN UNSPEAKABLE MISSION. By Judith Campbell. Mainly Mystery Press, 2011. 262 pages. $16.95 softcover.

Breathe, Smile, Relax is the self-evident exercise that Buddhist teacher Lama Surya Das promotes in his new book, Buddha Standard Time: Awakening to the Infinite Possibilities of Now. It’s a meditation that, as he puts it, “can help us collect ourselves and reconcentrate our energy and attention. Learning how to do this prevents the cupful of golden vitality poured into us at birth from being continuously drained away.”

It’s surprising there aren’t more spooky thrillers that include mysteries, and more mysteries with spooks. When equal mixtures are applied — in other words, scary stuff happening for which a reason must be found — fans of both genres put the books on the top 10 list and a classic is born: The Exorcist, Peter Straub’s Ghost Story, The Shining, even Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, her attempt to write a hot-selling Gothic novel, a genre that runs in and out of fashion but was very much in vogue at the time. Ms.

MELTING DOWN. By Harvey Stone (The Way Things Are Publications), $28.95.

If your idea of a homemade gift of food is a paper plate of chocolate chip cookies (recipe on the package; can’t go wrong with that), bound up in cellophane and tied with a ribbon, then the new book Gourmet Gifts: 100 Delicious Recipes for Every Occasion to Make Yourself and Wrap With Style (Harvard Common Press, $19.95), is going to make you feel like the last Neanderthal when the Cro-Magnons announced, “Look, we just do everything better.”

Jon Katz, dog lover, befuddled farmer in upstate New York and author of 20 books, many of which take place on Bedlam Farm, is returning to the Vineyard to promote his latest book, Going Home. Those of us fortunate enough to see Mr. Katz on his last trip here can pass on the news that his talents as a writer are eclipsed only by his abilities before a live audience. His talk takes place on Friday, Oct. 28, at 7:30 p.m. at the Bunch of Grapes Bookstore in Vineyard Haven.