For a fun, funny read (and I mean laugh-out-loud funny), check out The Guinea Pig Diaries: My Life as an Experiment by A. J. Jacobs (Simon & Schuster), on sale today.

Jacobs, a 40-something married guy with kids living in New York City, shares a selection of experiments he's lived over the last few years.

What makes the whole thing rock-and-roll is Jacobs's clear, offbeat, and entertaining voice.

He spent one month outsourcing his life to a firm in India. Someone even read to his children for him.

He spent another month living by George Washington's 110 rules of civility and decent behavior, which include, "Shift not yourself in the sight of others nor gnaw your nails."

And he spent yet another month being the most perfect husband he was capable of being (which included a few bumps along the way--even perfect guys run into bumps in the road). An excerpt from this appears in the September issue of Reader's Digest entitled, "To Serve with Love."

Dig in! It's a lesson in joyfulness.

Changing gears completely, I also enjoyed Sorrel King's new book, Josie's Story: A Mother's Inspiring Crusade to Make Medical Care Safe (Atlantic Monthly Press), on sale today too.

King had the terrible experience of enduring an emergency in the family, when her daughter was badly burned and had to be rushed to the hospital.

Just when her daughter seemed to be on the upturn and was getting ready to come home, things at the hospital went terribly awry.

Josie never made it home.

Medical error caused her death.

Whenever I start a book like this I get that familiar feeling of dread in my stomach, as in, Oh no, here we go--another sad, sad story.

I must always ask myself if it's worth it, and what the payoff might be, and whether the writing and the storytelling are strong enough to keep going.

Bottom line: Worth the read.

Through sheer force of will, persistence, and courage, Sorrel King pushed past the tragedy and fought to change a system that very much needed fixing. As such, she gives the rest of us hope.

Many mothers will say, "I don't know if I could do what this woman did."

But by reading her story, they'll gain new knowledge of what bravery in the face of despair looks like. It looks like you and me.

Read more about Sorrel King and her story here.