Whether you're parked at home on a "staycation" due to high gas prices or one of the lucky few who get to jet-set to some tropical destination this summer, you're bound to have some time to crack open a book. Wherever you are, it may be worthwhile to engage in some reading that informs your professional situation, whether you're an engineer, entrepreneur, manager, marketer or salesperson.

We've set our sights on some promising new (or mostly new) releases in this roundup of summer reading, hoping that if we're gonna be reading something, we might as well be reading tomes that inform us as much as they entertain us.

Management Lessons from Mayo Clinic (McGraw-Hill, 2008)
by Leonard L. Berry and Kent D. Seltman
$22.36
Berry is the service-business mastermind behind the Mayo Clinic, which earns over $6 billion annually and has become one of America's most successful hospitals. Here he reveals the secrets to running not just a successful hospital, but a successful business, sharing stories and anecdotes about increasing brand recognition, satisfying customers and keeping employees happy.

Love the Work, Hate the Job: Why America's Best Workers Are Unhappier Than Ever (Wiley, 2008)
by David Kusnet
$23.96
Former presidential speechwriter Kusnet, who followed four employees at four different companies in Seattle at the twilight of the millennium, investigates why modern workers are happy with their careers but disenchanted with their workplaces. The idea is that by evaluating historical tendencies, workplace mismanagement, benefits packages and certain ills of corporate culture, he can diagnose some of these job grumblings and propose innovative solutions for workers and managers both.

Rivals: How the Power Struggle Between China, India and Japan Will Shape Our Next Decade (Harcourt, 2008)
by Bill Emmott
$20.80
A former editor of "The Economist" adds a new title to the ever-growing list of books concerned with Asian economic growth. This evaluation, however, is not of how the Eastern powers will compete with the West, but how they will compete with one another. Emmott outlines the historical and economic histories of China, India and Japan (their current status didn't "just happen"), then makes two broad predictions about their futures — one optimistic, one pessimistic — providing terse advice to Western governments and businesses on how to approach the coming years.

Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations (Penguin Press, 2008)
by Clay Shirky
$20.76
Longtime corporate media consultant and New York University Professor Shirky argues that Web 2.0, in its myriad Wiki, social networking and viral manifestations, represents a paradigm shift not just for the "old" media, but for human beings as a whole. While hearkening back to Summer of Love-style counterculture and plotting the throughline to today's decentralized communities, Shirky describes possibilities for Internet communication and real-world progress in government, media, art and old-school cooperation.

Microsoft 2.0: How Microsoft Plans to Stay Relevant in the post-Gates Era (Wiley, 2008)
by Mary Jo Foley
$22.36
In this book, Foley, a journalist who has specialized in covering Microsoft for two decades, evaluates the company's rise to power and reveals its plan to compete in a Web 2.0 market. The Google-dominated scene can have serious consequences for a post-Gates Microsoft (his last day at Microsoft was late last month), and the findings here — coupled with Foley's astute and learned predictions — make for a story full of intrigue as well as reverberations for the larger business and global community.

Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet (Penguin Press, 2008)
by Jeffrey D. Sachs
$22.36
Sachs' slim manifesto about the possibilities for dynamic, productive change in a world with a larger population, young and growing economies, and energy and resource access problems, follows on the footsteps of his last book, The End of Poverty. In his continued pursuit of achieving solutions to our sustainability issues, Sachs may extend his reach in calling for paradigmatic shifts in every aspect of community interaction and organization — you can't help but admire his enthusiasm and optimism.

The Toothpick: Technology & Culture (Knopf, 2007)
by Henry Petroski
$27.95
Sure, 350 pages on toothpicks could potentially be 350 pages too many. But Henry Petroski, who previously explored the world of the pencil, is one of the few writers up to the task. His new work delves into the ancient history of this "elegant device," as well as into the 20th century popularization, branding and manufacture of the wooden restaurant "condiment," while even finding time to unearth some dirt behind a powerful American toothpick dynasty.

American Nerd: The Story of My People (Scribner, 2008)
by Benjamin Nugent
$16
Here Nugent explores the oft-maligned subculture of the American nerd, and he does not disappoint, embracing and analyzing famous nerds such as Bill Gates and the Beach Boys' Brian Wilson, as well as everyday nerds across the country. This book ruminates on the intersections between social and professional nerd-dom — which includes sections addressing the curious overlap between worshipers of Dungeons & Dragons co-creator Gary Gygax and those who write computer code for a living — and never takes itself too seriously.

The Design of Future Things (Perseus Publishing, 2007)
by Donald A. Norman
$27.50
Following 2002's The Design of Everyday Things, Norman now peers into the middle distance to evaluate products and materials of tomorrow, where everything is "smart" and "user-friendly." The former Apple Fellow argues for simplicity and elegance in designs that facilitate intuitive use on the part of the user while challenging designers and engineers to face the test. Has the wireless-enabled, voice-activated "smart" gauntlet been thrown down?

A Million is Not Enough: How to Retire With the Money You'll Need (Springboard Press, 2008)
by Michael K. Farr
$24.99
As retirement looms for many so-called baby boomers, investment banker Farr provides some common and not-so-common ideas about how to save for the 20-some years you're projected to survive after your working life. Intended for nearly everyone in the workforce ages 30 to 50, A Million is Not Enough attempts to convince its readers that while it is never too early to start saving, and saving smart, it can become too late.