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· The House on First Street: My New Orleans StoryBy Julia Reed Ecco. 201 pp. $23.95

In this sassy memoir, Julia Reed, a contributing editor at Vogue and Newsweek, chronicles the protracted and oft-bungled renovation of her New Orleans house, a project that was interrupted -- but not ended -- by Hurricane Katrina.

· Confessions Of a ContractorBy Richard Murphy Putnam. 273 pp. $24.95

Richard Murphy, a former contractor to the glitterati of Los Angeles, mines that experience in his first novel, a love story about, yes, a contractor who gets a little too involved with his clients.