The Nursing Mother's Companion, by Kathleen Huggins, R.N., M.S. (1995)
It's difficult to find a book on breastfeeding that covers the practical aspects without over-preaching the philosophies. This book comes the closest to purely practical of all the books I looked at, but you'll still need to skip a paragraph here and there if you already have your own reasons for breastfeeding and hate reading other people's. The book is deceptively long: information is often repeated verbatim in several different sections. I liked this repetitive format because it kept the text for the most part free the "see also pg 32, 54, and 102" references that drive me batty when all I want to do is read a section straight through. The best part of the book is Appendix C: The Safety of Drugs During Breastfeeding. I looked up nine different drugs I was familiar with, and all nine were listed. However, in the copy I had, the page numbers in the drug index were incorrect; perhaps when the old edition was revised the drug index was forgotten.
Caring For Your Baby and Young Child: Birth to Age 5, by The American Academy of Pediatrics (1998)
There are many excellent child-care books available, but it sure gives a book an extra shine when it's put together by The American Academy of Pediatrics. If Amy the Author writes a book telling you what to do if your child has a rash, it's difficult to know if Amy has any credentials or if you'd be just as well off asking the supermarket clerk. The American Academy of Pediatrics, on the other hand---well if they don't have a reputation to stake on the subject of childhood rashes, I don't know who does.
Furthermore, I've found that even excellent child-care books can lean heavily on personal philosophies of child-rearing rather than sticking to the facts. If you find a book that gives terrific advice for dealing with the rash but then drives you crazy by implying that you're a bad parent, there's no sense having the book sitting on your shelf. This book has a moment or two of bias (and almost all of these are reserved for the "Where We Stand" insets), but for the most part you'll find it less biased than your pediatrician. It covers topics that range from the very basic (how to put a shirt on over an infant's head, how to mix formula) to the more difficult (stimulating brain growth in a 2-year-old, toy safety information, CPR).
Additional note (10-03-1999): I'd like to revise slightly my comment on this book's bias. It IS biased, because it advocates the conservative, safety-based view of the medical community. It also reflects the current child-rearing philosophies approved of by that community: the cry-it-out method of getting the baby to sleep, for example. While I still feel the book is less biased than many, this isn't the book that will fill all your needs if you want to have a family bed or use natural homemade herbal remedies. Even if you despise the medical community, this is a good book for developmental milestones and basic baby care techniques; however, I still stand by what I said about the pointlessness of having a book that makes you feel like a bad parent.
Dog Days, by Mavis Cheek (1990)
See my March 1998 review of Mavis Cheek's book Parlor Games: the plot is different, but the review is the same. In Dog Days, a woman finally breaks free from a marriage held together only by a child; the book is about her adjustments to the single life and her attempts to find new love in spite of herself. Dog Days is less sexually explicit than Parlor Games, but the fighting was just as wince-producing.