Outhouses of Connecticut
By Leslie and Richard Strauss
$14.95, Strauss House Creations

Its provenance was curiosity. Why is Connecticut so fond of these little houses with dollhouse proportions out back?

Leslie and Richard Strauss of Chester wondered why residents of their 350-year-old village maintained their backyard latrines and stumbled onto a treasure of historical remembrances, anecdotes, lore, photos and even poetry — all centered on the most necessary room in (or out of) the house.

Outhouses of Connecticut, with photographs by the couple's daughter Jessica Strauss Hunt offers a visual tour through colonial-era latrines lovingly kept up by their owners, but it's also a repository of Connecticut history from the perspective of the people.

Some are miniature replicas of the main house, others have been repurposed as garden sheds, storage facilities, and a select few are still in use for the occasional hiker or during an unfortunate loss of water or plumbing indoors.

Read about the "Portland pooper," three-seaters, the meaning of moon and star carvings which typically adorn a loo's front door, the Moodus pastor who conducts Sunday services toilet-less church while urging his parishioners to go light on the coffee before Mass, why many latrines have handles on the sides, and how one 90-year-old former project engineer neatly assembled a tiny carved outhouse inside a narrow-necked jug. You'll never look at your toilet bowl the same again.

What to Expect When You're Expected: A Fetus's Guide to the First Three Trimesters
By David Javerbaum
$15, Spiegel & Graus

Only a guy that's ushered his wife through two pregnancies and births can look back at the absurdity of it all. Not the miracle of life, of course, (cue angels singing) but the cult-like devotion first-time parents hold for what's considered the childbirth bible — What to Expect When You're Expecting by Heidi Murkoff.

With more than 16 million copies sold, Murkoff's guide, originally published in 1984, is to expectant mothers as Bibles are to hotel rooms, making it the perfect fodder for parody — everyone has either seen it, read it, can quote full passages from it, or avoided it.

Enter David Javerbaum, comedy writer and former executive producer of "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart." Javerbaum's target audience for What to Expect When You're Expected: A Fetus's Guide to the First Three Trimesters is the most underserved of literary audiences, "the little child in some of us."

Mom has asked for advice from every female within a 1,000-mile vicinity, including the bag lady who picks out beer cans from recycle bins, and dad's playing the "mmm-hmm" card from his "I'm feigning attention/agreement/deep interest" repertoire. But who's Cliff-Noting the baby?

Don't fear, Javerbaum's here.

Some excerpts:

"Chances are Mommy will be taking it a little easy these first three months, going to bed earlier, waking up later, canceling all but her most essential triathlons ... The household's entire collection of cookware may soon form a giant game of Jenga in the sink that stands in silent condemnation of Daddy's astounding selfishness."

"For her co-workers, Mommy's pregnancy is sure to unleash a welter of conflicting emotions. ... Then there's Mommy's boss. He had a lot of faith in her. He thought the company meant everything to her. Now this is the thanks he gets for choosing her over that asshole Phil in sales."

And advice for week 38 of gestation:

"This week, your body is producing a lot of surfactant, fluid that prevents the air sacs in the lungs from ... oh, you don't care about this stuff anymore. ... Remember the time between Obama's election and his inauguration? When no one gave a crap anymore what Bush was doing, even Bush? Well, right now, this pregnancy is President Bush."

You'll laugh so much, you'll need a diaper.