Monitor readers share their favorite book picks.

An artist traces a century of heartbreaking family history by pursuing the path of a group of tiny, beloved objets d’art.

A Christian Science perspective.

AP - A wind-whipped wildfire sent flames roaring through a rugged canyon in the Colorado foothills, forcing hundreds of people to flee and destroying dozens of homes — some that belonged to the firefighters themselves, authorities said early Tuesday.

AP - Tropical Storm Hermine rolled into south Texas early Tuesday, bringing heavy rains and strong winds to an area battered by Hurricane Alex earlier this summer.

AP - An Indonesian volcano shot a towering cloud of black ash high into the air Tuesday, dusting villages 15 miles (25 kilometers) away in its most powerful eruption since awakening last week from four centuries of dormancy.

AP - Turns out politics, for all its focus on the gloomy economy, is a recession-proof industry.

AP - The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan warned Tuesday an American church's threat to burn copies of the Muslim holy book could endanger U.S. troops in the country and Americans worldwide.

AP - Prime Minister Julia Gillard will lead Australia's first minority government in 67 years after two independent lawmakers threw their support behind her center-left Labor Party on Tuesday, ending two weeks of uncertainty left by national elections that ended on a knife-edge.

AP - The influx of foreign aid after the 2005 Kashmir earthquake significantly increased survivors' trust in the West, according to new research that also suggests hard-line Islamist charities did little to help despite the publicity they generated.

AP - Oracle Corp. has hired former Hewlett-Packard Co. CEO Mark Hurd to help lead the database software maker in a pivotal moment in Oracle's 33-year history as it tries to muscle in on more of HP's turf.

AP - AOL is adding talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres to its family of Web properties as it looks for ways to draw more people to its sites.

AP - Now, the names opposite Roger Federer's in the bracket will start looking more familiar.

Reuters - President Barack Obama, scrambling to spur job creation, proposed a six-year plan on Monday to rebuild infrastructure with an initial $50 billion investment and prepared new business tax cuts.

Reuters - Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard secured a wafer thin parliamentary majority on Tuesday, ending a political impasse but hardly cheering investors worried about the fragility of her government and its plans to tax mining profits.

Reuters - China wants to quell tensions with the United States through quiet talk, not shouting matches, a top diplomat told White House advisers on Tuesday, aiming to pave the way for a visit by President Hu Jintao early next year.

Reuters - The U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan has requested another 2,000 troops for the foreign force fighting the Taliban insurgency, despite waning support for the war in troop-contributing nations, NATO officials said.

Reuters - Iran is pushing ahead with its nuclear program in defiance of tougher sanctions and is hampering the U.N. atom watchdog's work by barring some inspectors, the IAEA says in a new report.

Reuters - U.S. military commanders in Afghanistan warned on Monday that a small Florida church's plan to burn copies of the Koran on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks could endanger the lives of American troops.

Reuters - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told visiting U.S. congressmen he thinks it could be possible to reach a peace deal with the Palestinians in a year despite huge differences, his spokesman said.

AFP - Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard retained power by a tiny, one-seat majority Tuesday after winning the backing of two key independent MPs in the first hung parliament in decades.

AFP - Major storms ravaging Guatemala and southern Mexico since the weekend have killed at least 48 people and caused damage worth hundreds of millions of dollars, officials said.