Just in time for post-holiday dieting, get some advice from nutrition expert Joy Bauer, a University of Maryland grad who gives advice on television and in magazines. Or try Eon, a hard-charging sci-fi book that Nancy found engaging.

Joy’s Life Diet by Joy Bauer (Collins, $25.95). Today show nutrition and health expert Bauer gives her four-step plan for losing weight and keeping it off.

Eon: Dragoneye Reborn by Alison Goodman (Viking, $19.99). Eon has been studying the ancient art of Dragon Magic for years, hoping to apprentice to one of the 12 energy dragons of good fortune. But Eon is actually Eona, a 16-year-old girl who has been living a dangerous lie for the chance to become the human link to an energy dragon’s power. For young adults.

There’s No Traffic on the Extra Mile: Lessons on the Road from Dreams to Destiny by Rickey Minor (Gotham, $25). The music director of American Idol shares his view on how to succeed in life.

Miles from Nowhere by Nami Mun (Riverhead, $21.95). Nami Mun’s first novel is a 1980s urban odyssey in which Joon-Mee, a 12-year-old Korean-American, leaves her troubled Bronx family for the life of a New York City runaway.