NOT TONIGHT, HONEY: Wait 'Til I'm a Size 6

Reinhardt slips Zoloft into her husband's tea for several weeks to cure him of an incessant need to clean and an overactive libido. She is matron of honor at her best friend's wedding—and ends up taking the minister's place when his colostomy bag malfunctions. She gives an interview while on bed rest due to irritable uterus syndrome and later winds up reading a headline on her "grumpy vagina." Obviously, syndicated newspaper columnist Reinhardt is the kind of woman who gets into endless scrapes, but she's as amused by them as readers are, and her book will appeal to lovers of the Sweet Potato Queens and Fanny Flagg. But there's another side to Reinhardt. Some of the essays in this collection are lyrical even as they pay tribute to old favorites: Southern women, pregnancy and motherhood. Most of all, the author knows that some days we, like her, come into work just to see what the "weirdos" are up to, and that we like the same thing in our nonfiction. And while her topics are sometimes predictable and her humor is sometimes crass, her heart is always in the right place, and her prose is often fresh and fun. Agent, Ethan Ellenberg. (May)