Every week, we'll be letting you know about new releases the editors at O and Oprah.com couldn't stop reading. On sale today...

The Astral
By Kate Christensen

The title: It's a Brooklyn apartment building where Christensen's main character Harry lives, until his wife kicks him out for an affair he isn't having.

Why you'll care: In the face of lost love, Harry (who is a poet) finds joy with a group of aging bohemians.

Truth in fiction: Relationships are complicated, which means you  learn something important from every single one.

Read the full review and browse our complete summer reading list here

Photo: Keller + Keller

When Joanne Chang, who majored in applied mathematics and economics at Harvard, ditched a career in management consulting for one in the food industry, she chucked a whole mess of books. Goodbye, expanded edition of Applied Calculus for Business, Economics, and the Social and Life Sciences; hello, bread-making bibles and Southeast Asian cooking manuals. Cookbooks are a huge part of Chang's new life as the proprietor of Flour, a bakery-cafe with three branches in Boston. She and her husband, Christopher Myers, are also co-owners of Myers + Chang, a diner that serves Chinese, Taiwanese, Thai and Vietnamese specialties. Here, Chang shares her top five cookbooks, from the brass-tacks basics to more specialized guides, and why she thinks they belong in everyone's kitchen.

Amy's Bread by Amy Scherber
"Amy has a no-nonsense way of explaining how to make simple breads and pastries that have guided me for years. If you're starting a cookbook collection, this book will make you feel Amy's passion and spirit for bread baking. She's not hoity-toity. She's more like, 'Hey, this is my bakery, and here are the breads that we make—and you can make them too.' Bread is something a lot of people shy away from, but Amy makes it approachable."

The Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum
"This is an introductory book that has enough in it that even professionals who've been baking for years will find it useful. Rose is famous within the pastry world for her exacting testing and measurements. She isn't a restaurant pastry chef, but you're not going to make restaurant deserts in your kitchen—you're going to make cakes for your family. (But we use this book almost daily at my bakery, Flour, and a variation of her sour cream coffee cake is on the menu.)"

Next: More of Joanne Chang's indispensable cookbooks...

1. In the beginning, man created treadmills. These personalized conveyor belts allowed fitness-crazed humans to work out any time of the day or night in the comfort of their own homes. With treadmills, they could avoid workout obstacles like traffic, darkness, cold, snow, heat, pollution, unwashed clothes, angry dogs and angry neighbors. Finally, there were no excuses for missing a workout.

2. The humans soon found other uses for the treadmill. These alternative uses often served as excuses for missing a workout.
[After the jump, fast-forward to the treadmills of the future.]

Photo: Cristina Ferrare

We've got four picks to make the most of this week...

Flag Day is today: How to make Cristina Ferrare's Stars and Stripes cake

Tomorrow's lunar eclipse: How to see it (even though it isn't visible from the United States)

The beach life: How to make yourself a flattering, fashionable coverup

Alice's bucket list: How to help a dying girl visit Cadbury (read: chocolate) World

My dog Leonard was the smelliest dog on the earth. People used to walk into my house, sniff and then attempt to subtly breath through their mouths in order to avoid overtly holding their noses and offending us. One time at a dinner party, I was introduced to a woman who happened to be French.

"Oh," she said. "I know you. Vous etes la femme avec le grand chien qui pue." Translation: You're the lady with the big dog who stinks.

Photo: American Kennel Club

Equally troubling was his appearance. Leonard had a mangy, mud-colored coat that lay plastered to his skeletal body even when dry. His ears were crooked, his teeth splayed at upsetting angles.

When I entered him into the Great American Mutt Show (a dog show especially for mixed breeds), the judges immediately kicked us out of the ring. I was outraged, so was Leonard. He broke free, hopped back into the ring and trotted around the circle, solo, until hustled away.

Imagine my delight when the American Kennel Club last week announced the official recognition of three new dog breeds: the American English coonhound, the Finnish Lapphund and the Cesky terrier (say those names three times fast).

According to the AKC website, American English coonhounds (at left) are "affectionate dogs that ... make great companions for active owners."

Photo: Thinkstock

After suffering through a doubleheader of sports-related stress fractures in my 20s, I became a calcium-aholic. On top of putting skim milk in my coffee and cereal, cheese on my sandwich, yogurt in my smoothies and almonds on just about everything, I started eating more of the lesser-known calcium sources like kale, chickpeas, tofu and even sardines. It doesn't stop there: In order to bump my calcium intake up over 1,000 mg, which is the U.S. recommended daily allowance for women under 50, I also take a calcium supplement of 600 mg (plus vitamin D) at breakfast, and sometimes a second supplement at night. There was even a period--and I recognize the folly in this--during which I was popping those chewy chocolate-flavored supplements like they were Hershey's kisses. I take these precautions because I'm stressed out about my bones. The memory of my injuries, combined with my knowledge of the looming risk of osteoporosis (10 million Americans have it, and 80 percent of them are women), have made me think that I should be erring on the side of too much calcium.

However, a recent study has deflated my hopes that calcium supplements are the magic pill to prevent fractures and osteoporosis.

Every Monday, we'll be sharing the quotes that make us snap to attention. Reading these recent revelations feels as bracing as a second cup of coffee.

* Ellen Barkin's Best Actress Tony acceptance speech for her role as a wheelchair-bound doctor trying to combat AIDS: "Performing in 'The Normal Heart' has transformed me, not just as an actor, but as a human being. Because it taught me something that I never believed in: It taught me that one person can make a difference, that one person can change the world. So thank you to the great, great Larry Kramer..."

* Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook, in her 2011 commencement speech at Barnard College: "... do not leave before you leave. Do not lean back; lean in. Put your foot on that gas pedal and keep it there until the day you have to make a decision, and then make a decision. That's the only way, when that day comes, you'll even have a decision to make."

* Timothy Brown, the subject of the New York magazine profile, "The Man Who Had HIV and Now Does Not," on why he submits to being poked, prodded, tested and analyzed as a medical miracle:
"I can help."