Book Reviews:
Editors' October Picks
Check out five new titles on our radar this month.
- Half Broke Horses
- by Jeanette Walls (Scribner)
A follow-up to her memoir, The Glass Castle, Walls tells the inspiring story of her horse-breaking, poker-playing, bootlegging grandmother, Lily Casey Smith. Fiercely outspoken and remarkably resilient, Lily is a heroine with the kind of gumption that wins you over immediately.
$17, Amazon.com.
- Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son
- by Michael Chabon (Knopf)
The Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist transcends the daddy-confessional genre in these moving and often hilarious essays, widening the field to reflect on his own childhood and his life both before and after having kids.
$17, Amazon.com.
- Ina May's Guide to Breastfeeding
- by Ina May Gaskin (Bantam)
A midwife for more than 40 years, Gaskin has a cultlike following due to her plainspoken writing style. As with her Guide to Childbirth (2003), this book is interspersed with first-person anecdotes about the initial challenges and eventual rewards of nursing.
$12, Amazon.com.
- The Omnivore's Dilemma for Young Readers
- by Michael Pollan (Dial)
For ages 10 and up, this edition of Pollan's book about where our food comes from has simpler language and more charts, but it's as smart, entertaining, and revelatory as the original (the chapter on industrial cow farming will turn any kid off fast food for life).
$18, Powell's Books.
- Jamie's Food Revolution: Rediscover How to Cook Simple, Delicious, Affordable Meals
- By Jamie Oliver (Hyperion)
Working to combat a growing crisis of bad health and obesity, Oliver aims his latest cookbook at teaching us to make food that is healthy, delicious, and budget-conscious, and asks readers to pass along his words of culinary wisdom in hopes of making a dent in the problem.
$26, Amazon.com.
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