THOSE who prefer to undertake a military tour of duty without donning a uniform can find out the latest on American tanks and gunships in Tom Clancy's Armoured Warfare (HarperCollins $170). The book looks at the strengths of an armoured regiment (mobility, effective over long distances, reconnaissance), the variety of weaponry available to commanders and how best to make use of it. Clancy also interviews two American military officers who took part in the Gulf War. A Fool and His Money by Martin Baker (Orion $84) provides an irreverent guide to the investment world. Baker, a financial journalist, tackles the markets and moneymen, whittling away at the jargon and offering entertaining introductions to brokers, mutual funds and derivatives, among others. Ethical investment merits a chapter of its own. Margaret Drabble's Angus Wilson (Secker & Warburg $340) is said to be the first, 'full' biography of the British novelist and critic. And at 700 pages - including index and appendices - it certainly doesn't skimp on the details. Wilson was a man of many parts: traveller, teacher, friend, homosexual, and literary mentor. He died in 1991. India had a special hold on Penelope Betjeman, wife of the Poet Laureate, John. Over the years she undertook many journeys on the sub-continent and in 1985, a year before her death, she took a granddaughter with her. In 1991, Imogen Lycett Green returned to follow once again the roads she had travelled six years earlier. The result, Grandmother's Footsteps (Pan $102), provides not only an account of the sights and people but of Penelope Betjeman herself. How to Win Arguments by Robert Allen (Thorsons $82) is a 125-page guide to beating off challenges to your way of thinking. First you have to realise what type of row you are having - maybe one to convince bystanders of the rightness of your view or one to humiliate the opponent by verbal dexterity. Then it's on to the tactics employed (aggressive, defensive, under the belt), what happens psychologically when we have rows and whether men and women argue differently. The way people have interacted with the land over time in Britain has led Janet and Colin Bord to create the Dictionary of Earth Mysteries (Thorsons $96). It tackles folklore and mythology, stone structures, crop circles and King Arthur. The latter also features in Bernard Cornwell's newest saga, The Winter King (Michael Joseph $272). Cornwell, the creator of Sharpe and the Peninsular War adventure series, portrays Arthur as a military leader out to unite the warring factions of fifth-century Britain against the Saxon enemy. After the success of Life's Little Instruction Book, there's no stopping publishers who wish to guide readers through all life's problems with pocket-size pronouncements. Nine titles in the series have already hit the shelves and now there are two more: The Traveller's Little Instruction Book by Jo Kyle and Meg Slyfield and The Office Life Little Instruction Book by Holly Budd (Thorsons $55 each). These take a light-hearted look at their chosen subjects. Out in paperback is A Alvarez's eclectic look at Night (Vintage $96) and all things connected with it. This entails an examination of dreams, art and darkness, and people who live by night.