In For You, Mom, Finally (Penguin, $13), food critic and writer Ruth Reichl shares the lifelong regrets that dogged her mother, Mim. After her mother’s death, Reichl reads Mim’s letters and personal notes and discovers the deep remorse that had long plagued her. Instead of pursuing a fulfilling career, Mim buckled under parental and societal pressure to marry and raise a family. Mim’s depression is also the malaise of a generation of middle-class women who glimpsed during WWII the freedom and independence available in work outside the home, but who were forced back into domesticity immediately after the war. Reichl presents Mim’s unhappiness with generosity and warmth. For You, Mom, Finally is a touching book that recognizes a mother’s sacrifices and her hope that her daughter would not face the same limitations.