Like half of America, I recently got an Instant Pot pressure cooker and am ready and willing to fall in love with it. So far, I'm in moderate like, not love, but this cookbook may push me over into a solid infatuation. The subtitle seems to promise too much — "Easy Recipes for Fast and Healthy Meals" — but, so far, it seems to be delivering.

I like the balance of recipes, which are organized into breakfast; vegetables; beans and grains; soups, stews, and chilies; seafood and poultry; beef, lamb, and pork; dessert; and stocks and sauces. The variety within each category is pretty good, too, covering traditional American fare (chili, pot roast, cheese grits, apple dumplings, etc.) as well as several ethnic dishes (lamb curry, tabbouleh, fried rice, Thai-style corn chowder, pho, matzo ball soup, etc.).

Two things I really appreciate: 1) Each recipe gives prep time, time under pressure, and TOTAL time, plus nutrition info per serving. 2) The end matter includes general pressure-cooking time charts, general cooking conversion tables, the list of the "dirty dozen" and the "clean fifteen," and a resources list that actually gives other helpful resources (www.InstantPot.com, www.HipPressureCooking.com, www.PressureCookingToday.com, etc.) and isn't just a place to promote other books or sites by the author.

Two things I'm not a fan of: 1) Stock photos instead of shots of the actual dishes. 2) The number of recipes that require a small (6- or 7-inch diameter, or whatever fits in your cooker) baking dish used inside the pressure cooker. Unless you really don't want to heat up your oven, the very small amount of total time saved doesn't seem worth the hassle. Plus, many of them are relatively easy breakfast dishes (strata, frittata, french toast bake, etc.) that suddenly seem too complicated for this not-a-morning person once the pressure cooker is involved. I can maybe see an occasion for making individual desserts in ramekins in the pressure cooker, but I don't anticipate ever making a medium-size baked dessert or casserole-style dish or breakfast bake in it.

Those beans, grains, soups, stews, roasts, and stocks, however — I'm ready to fall in love with those.

Laura is the kind of busy, productive, encouraging freelancer that you want to take advice from. She keeps it real and fun—and doesn't waste your time. If you're struggling with work-life balance (or, better yet, before you struggle with work-life balance), spending the hour or so it will take to read this book will be well worth it.

You'll get advice on the fundamentals, on working with and around and sometimes in spite of others, and on how to correct the balance when it begins to tip. One of my favorite features is the "Words of Wisdom" sections.* These vignettes from other experienced freelancers add an unexpected richness and breadth to the book.

[* Disclosure: I contributed one of the "Words of Wisdom" vignettes.]

I've read a few Jane Austen biographies over the years, and this one quickly became my favorite. I read it in just a few short days and definitely recommend it to others interested in Jane Austen's life or in the lives of Georgian- and Regency-era women.

At first glance, the organization of the book by the homes that Austen lived in seems a bit contrived — it's basically just chronological order by another name, right? — but it's a contrivance that I 100 percent buy into. Home, and the precarious living situation of women, is a theme in Austen's work that always stands out to me, so the closer look at her own precious and precarious home life provides a meaningful framework here.

The details of Austen's life aren't particularly accessible, but the author's writing style is, and the research seems solid (and owes much to previous biographers, which is acknowledged). I'm not familiar with the author's other books or television work, but I've seen her writing style criticized, for this book in particular, as being a bit "breathless" (overly enthusiastic and star-struck). I thought it was fine. It's chummy and appreciative, but not fawning and overly eager. There is a bit more speculation than I need (I don't care to guess whether infant Jane Austen was swaddled or not) and some of the wide brushstrokes used to paint a scene for which little relevant information remains are sometimes too obvious and distracting. And I would have appreciated a family tree to reference, since the extended Austen family is somewhat sprawling and it's easy to lose track of the friends and family that are mentioned throughout.

Those are minor complaints, however, for a book that I enjoyed and certainly recommend.