All About Eve: The Complete Guide to Women's Health and Well-being (1995)

Most of us want our mothers by our sides when we get sick; unfortunately, that becomes more complicated as we get older, not to mention a bit unseemly. So what a pleasure to discover a voice like that of Tracy Chutorian Semler, who is everything we want in a caretaker: bright, informed, articulate, and vastly comforting. In All About Eve: The Complete Guide to Women's Health and Well-being, she also manages to write about women's bodies and health in a tone that feels personal without getting too touchy-feely (there's no call for an eye roll in the section ''Problems With Sex,'' for instance). Eve is not comprehensive on each subject — nor is it meant to be — but it gives solid attention to everything from breast cancer to pregnancy to the suffering we endure from high heels and includes hotline numbers, statistics, and first-person accounts from a range of women. A+