Shelf Life

In her new book, "The Dinner Diaries," Betsy Block recounts her attempts to feed her family in a more nutritious way. (Laura Williams)

Family fuel
Barbara Kingsolver's family moved from Arizona to a farm in Virginia so they could grow most of their food and buy the rest locally. The bestseller "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" is her chronicle of the one-year experiment.

Now along comes Betsy Block, a harried mother of two living in Arlington. She wants to improve her family's diet without lifting a hoe. With a refreshing sense of humor, she recounts the many frustrations and occasional joys of her experience in "The Dinner Diaries: Raising Whole Wheat Kids in a White Bread World" (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill).

As Block, a food writer adept at sifting through conflicting studies about nutrition and sustainability, experiments with healthy ingredients over the course of a year, groans arise at the dinner table. Her husband, Andy, quips that the best use of quinoa is as a Scrabble word. Even Block turns up her nose at a seven-grain hot cereal that takes 15 minutes to cook and about that long to eat. "Why are healthy whole grains so chewy?" she wonders.

Eventually Block makes some nutritious meals that her family likes and masters some tricky techniques. She and her husband sneak a piece of chocolate after the kids go to bed. And she learns that exotic ingredients like chickpea flour become as alluring as forbidden fruit to 5-year-old Maya when they are hidden away in her home office.

A broader Borders
Borders is reinventing itself by opening 14 multimedia stores in the United States this year. The 10th store opens on Friday at Wareham Crossing, in Wareham .

The new stores highlight children's books, graphic novels, and books about health, cooking, and travel. In addition, they offer computers for customers to use and technical assistance to self-publish books and perform a variety of tasks such as downloading music and books and researching genealogy.

The concept has stirred debate. An editorial in Library Journal noted that the new Borders store in Ann Arbor, Mich., bears a striking resemblance to a library with the latest technology. Other critics have questioned the wisdom of offering online services easily accessible from a home computer. Borders appears to be betting on customers who want a little hand-holding on the technical front.

Savoring a good mystery
Murder Under Bones, a new series of readings featuring free appetizers at Redbones in Somerville, launches on July 15. Gary Braver will read from his new psychological thriller, "Skin Deep" (Forge). Braver is the pen name of Gary Goshgarian, an English professor at Northeastern University.

The readings - from 5:30 to 7 p.m. on the third Tuesday of each month - are a joint venture with Kate's Mystery Books. On Aug. 19, Cambridge author Linda Barnes will read from her new Carlotta Carlyle mystery, "Lie Down With the Devil" (St. Martin's).

Coming out