Lots of new foods have been added too, like 3 types of potato included regular, baked and poisonous. Carrots have been added, both regular and golden. Also Pumpkin Pie so there is a less chance of your Minecraft character to go hungry.
In my opinion, this Minecraft update is bigger than the last major update (1.3.1) because it has more noticeable changes which people are more lightly to use.
I like plant pots, basically you can put plants in them and place them around your house. Another pointless feature is mob heads, I suppose you could collect them and use them as decoration in your house however I don't see why you'd want to.
My favourite new feature is Anvil's. You place a tool in the Anvil then you can fix it and restore health on the item. They, however, use lots of iron to build.
The new Beacon is a block that when placed as the final block on top of a pyramid formation made up of diamond, emerald, gold or iron blocks (or any combination of the 4), will emit a beam of light into the sky. It also has weird effects on the player.
In conclusion, this is a good update which adds a lot of exciting items however if Mojang keeps bringing out updates like this every 3 months, Minecraft is soon going to become extremely overcomplicated.