Three Books... Why three? We live in a three-dimensional world, colored with hues that break down into a trio of primary colors. Our souls (according to Plato) and our psyches (according to Freud) are trilithic. Three is a number that allows for conversation, completion, understanding. And so "Three Books..." invites writers to recommend three great reads on a single theme.

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Three Books...

One theme, three great reads

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Three Books To Quell Your Quarter-Life Crisis

December 23, 2010 • As recent college grads, everything seems possible ... but nothing feels certain. Hannah Levintova recommends three works that will help pull you out of your twentysomething rut.

Three Books In Praise Of The Clueless Detective

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Three Books In Praise Of The Clueless Detective

December 20, 2010 • Anjanette Delgado has had it with the self-assured smugness of old-school detectives. She recommends three tales celebrating amateur sleuths — a clerk, a captain and an 11-year-old girl — as they fumble through their newfound detective duties.

Three Books To Rekindle Your Sense Of Wonder

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Three Books To Rekindle Your Sense Of Wonder

December 2, 2010 • In the information age, the unexplored is hard to come by. Author Richard Harvell recommends three titles to take you back to a time when the unknown was a little more accessible — and to remind you of the power of wonder and imagination.

Three Books To Help Grown-Ups Believe Again

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Three Books To Help Grown-Ups Believe Again

November 17, 2010 • Children have the gift of magical thinking — and writer Signe Pike thinks adults should, too. She recommends three enchanting tales — of fairies, goblins and folklore — that will fill grown-up children with a sense of wonder once again.

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Three Books In Unflinching, Unforgettable Voices

November 11, 2010 • The best stories creep under your skin and stay there. Kathryn Erskine recommends three gripping, unsettling reads with resolute, compelling narrators. These are stories that you just can't shake.

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Three Books For The Contemplative Comic

November 3, 2010 • When Raymond Khoury reads humor, he wants it to be about something. He recommends three seriously funny reads — about the war in Iraq, the decay of fiction and the questions of science — that address 21st century troubles with razor-sharp wit.

Three Grisly Tales Of Love And Death In Tinseltown

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Review

Three Grisly Tales Of Love And Death In Tinseltown

October 21, 2010 • Hollywood has always been a place where the glamorous and the grotesque go hand in paw. Paula Uruburu recommends books that strip away the sentiment to focus on the darker side of Hollywood's mass-produced fantasies.

Three Books To Help You Enjoy The Apocalypse

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Three Books To Help You Enjoy The Apocalypse

October 4, 2010 • If we're all going to hell in a bucket, Ron Currie Jr. says, we might as well enjoy the ride. Currie recommends three titles for people who like to think about the end of days.

Three Books To Take You Back To The Renaissance

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Three Books To Take You Back To The Renaissance

September 23, 2010 • Author Mary Sharratt recommends three titles that will take you back to the Italian Renaissance — an epoch of humanism and religious fervor, of philosophers and despots, of courtesans and saints. Pour yourself a glass of prosecco and experience the glory and danger of a lost age.

Three Books For Surviving Graduate School

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Three Books For Surviving Graduate School

September 9, 2010 • The last thing a grad student needs is another reading list, but don't worry — this one will help. Author Adam Ruben recommends three titles that will help you get through the languorous slog of post-baccalaureate education.

Three Books For Surviving Graduate School

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Three Books For The Self-Help Skeptic

September 1, 2010 • Plenty of folks are wary when it comes to self-help, but if you're not going to help yourself, then who will? Writer Lisa Unger says: Silence your inner snark and read these three books — they will clear your mind and change your life.

Three Books To Take You On That Long, Strange Trip

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Three Books To Take You On That Long, Strange Trip

August 10, 2010 • A half-century has passed since Timothy Leary, a research psychologist at Harvard University, swallowed some magic mushrooms in Mexico. Author Don Lattin recommends three books that delve into the colorful, creative world of Leary and other psychedelic trailblazers of the 1960s.

Comfort Books: Three Soothing Summer Reads

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Comfort Books: Three Soothing Summer Reads

July 21, 2010 • When Laura Lorson needs a break from the daily grind, she curls up with books that transport her to simpler times. She recommends three titles that take her back to her days of childhood summer reading — absorbing words off sun-dappled pages under the shade of a tree.

Comfort Books: Three Soothing Summer Reads

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Three Degrees Of Failure For The Recent Graduate

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Three Degrees Of Failure For The Recent Graduate

June 22, 2010 • That diploma you worked so hard for can come with a lot of pressure. No worries, class of 2010. Lizzie Skurnick recommends three books about what happens when a diploma is followed by disaster.

Three Books About Dads Who Love Dangerously

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Three Books About Dads Who Love Dangerously

June 19, 2010 • Sunday is the day we remember our doting, caring dads — but this Father's Day, Tess Callahan wonders whether it's possible for a dad to overextend his love. She looks at three books where a father's protection means keeping some dangerous secrets.