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Writer Gabrielle Kaplan-Mayer reflects on what the holiest day in Judaism has meant for her after an experience in Germany changed her connection to religion.

Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) says the United States needs to get out of Iraq as soon as possible. He has a withdrawal plan, which he outlines in this essay.

Commentator Lois Shea coaches youth softball in Warner, N.H. The team is made up of girls 10 and younger. Earlier in the season, Shea let the girls on the team suggest team names. They came up with things like "The Goats" "The Wiz" and "The Whales." Lois Shea has an essay in the book Mommy Wars, a collection published by Random House in March.

Tim Brookes, who occasionally contributes essays to NPR, is also a passionate and talented guitar player. He has just published Guitar: An American Life, which he describes as part history and part love song. He talks about what he learned in working on the book.

The humorist, who made his name with personal essays and other nonfiction, tells Steve Inskeep that his return to fiction kept taking him to surprising places. But the unhappy endings? Those he could have predicted.

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.

Out of the Vinyl Deeps is a tribute to The New Yorker's first pop critic — a writer whose words were as accessible as a great backbeat. The articles, collected and edited by Willis' daughter, are like conversations that feel relevant and real.

A sad tale's best for winter, as Shakespeare wrote — and reviewer Alan Cheuse recommends The Snow Child, a sad but ultimately hopeful winter tale touched with myth and fairytale. Cheuse says this novel about Alaskan homesteaders, out now in paperback, has "a mysterious onward-pulsing life force."

Comics fans and car buffs alike will enjoy Drawn & Quarterly's new collection of early Gasoline Alley strips, which capture an America at the dawn of its national love affair with the automobile.

Time to read during the holidays, away from school and work, is a gift you give yourself, author and book critic Alan Cheuse says. His suggested list of 2005 holiday gifts includes tales of space, dinosaurs, music and a mystical poet.