2010 Book Year in Review

I kept a running list of books I read in 2010. Did actually end up hitting the 100 book mark, without realizing it until I sat down to type them up! In addition to the books I read, I also listened to at least 15 audio books. My list is not actually in order of how I read them, but in order of how I jotted them on my notepad! In 2010, I read:

1. Small Gods (fiction, book club. Kind of good)
2. The Red Tent (third time I've read it, this time for book club. Like it very much!)
3. The Lacuna (book club. Very disappointing, because I usually love Barbara Kingsolver).
4. Womanspirit: A guide to women's wisdom (second reading, much enjoy)
5. Birth--an anthology of ancient texts, songs, prayers, and stories (disappointing)
6. Simplicity Lessons: 12 Step Guide to Living Simply (we worked through this book month-by-month in 2009 and then finished it in the early part of the year. Pretty good, but nothing new).
7. Women's Spirituality Book
8. Coming to Term (miscarriage and pregnancy-after-loss. Good, interesting)
9. The Grace in Dying (very good!)
10. U is for Undertow (for fun!)
11. My Name is Mary Sutter (very excellent historical fiction about a midwife/Civil War nurse)
12. Dance of the Womb (prenatal belly dance)
13. Brought to Earth by Birth (photo essay/lyrical ode to birth)
14. Wild Feminine (loved it! Very recommended)
15. A Silent Sorrow (miscarriage)
16. Pregnancy Loss
17. Miscarriage: Women's Experiences and Needs
18. Women's Rituals (read twice)
19. Circle Round
20. The Joy of Family Ritual
21. Pregnant Woman's Comfort Book (twice)
22. Avoiding Miscarriage
23. Painless Childbirth
24. The Women's Retreat Book (loved it. Highly recommended)
25. The Woman's Comfort Book
26. A Woman's Book of Rituals and Celebrations (twice. Very good!)
27. Mindful Motherhood
28. Survivor Moms
29. Birthing a Mother
30. Readings for Women's Programs (really enjoyed this. Used it for a class)
31. Your High Risk Pregnancy (read to review, did not enjoy and wish I hadn't read while also pregnant!)
32. Our Seven Principles in Story and Verse (UU)
33. In Nature's Honor (lots of ideas for seasonal celebrations)
34. Seven Times the Sun (so-so. Waldorfy book about creating home rhythms)
35. Sandra Dodd's Big Book of Unschooling (some great stuff, some annoying stuff)
36. The Year of Living Biblically (for book club. So-so. Funny).
37. Tending the Flame--The Art of UU Parenting
38. The Dance of the Dissident Daughter (second reading, enjoyed again)
39. FatherBirth
40. The Doctor and the Diva (did not really like. Fiction about early artificial insemination techniques, annoyingly dramatized, supposed to review but it didn't match my audience).
41. Dancing with Goddess (x's two)
42. Childbirth with Insight (an oldie and goodie. I'm getting ready to re-read this one)
43. An Easier Childbirth (third reading)
44. Active Birth (another classic!)
45. Secrets of Confident Childbirth
46. Immaculate Deception II (second reading)
47. Prodigal Summer (book club. Also Barbara Kingsolver and pretty good, though not my favorite one from her).
48. Labyrinth of Birth (new edition from Pam England. Very good. Getting ready to re-read)
49. Goddesses, Witches, and the Paradigm Shift (a collection of dramatic readings. Going to do a presentation from this at church for Women's History Month).
50. Optimal Birth (very long. Good).
51. The Alchemist (barely remember. oops!)
52. Mothervoices (??)
53. I Wish I Had a Read Dress (fiction, book club, second reading. Enjoyed).
54. The Feminine Mistake: Are we giving up too much? (thought-provoking)
55. Pregnancy, Childbirth, and the Newborn (new edition)
56. Living without Reservations (travel/simple living memoir. Enjoyed).
57. The Queen's Cloak
58. Wild Girls
59. Sacred Dimensions of Women's Experience (interesting)
60. The Wheel of Life and Death (interesting)
61. Birthing Ourselves into Being
62. Birthing from Within (approximately 6th reading. All-time favorite birth book for sure!)
63. Siesta Lane (simple living memoir, not what I expected).
64. The Patron Saint of Liars (fiction, forgettable)
65. The Joy of Pregnancy
66. Having a Baby, Naturally (second reading)
67. Finding Your Own North Star
68. Waiting (journal of pregnancy after loss)
69. The Shallows (book club, so-so).
70. Un-Jobbing (third or so reading, like it).
71. Courageous Parents, Confident Kids
72. Rediscovering Birth (second reading, lots of good pix, good anthropological look at birth culture)
73. The Politics of Women's Spirituality (really enjoyed, very long and dense and took AGES to finish reading. I worked on it for about four months, I think!)
74. Child of the Northern Spring (fiction about Guinevere for book club. Did not really like. Boring).
75. Goddess Spirituality at the Crossroads (first book read on my new Kindle! Really liked it. A collection of columns from a no-longer-published journal of women's spirituality).
76. The Roots of Natural Mothering (so-so)
77. The Goddess Companion (did daily readings from this over course of entire year--it is 365 meditations)
78. Simple Abundance (used this same way as above).
79. Introduction to Human Services textbook for class.
80. Child Welfare textbook for class
81. Effective Group Discussion textbook for class
82. Groups: Process and Practice textbook for class
83. Memoirs of a Singing Birth (e-book)
84. Understanding the Dangers of a Cesarean Birth (for review)
85. Great Gals (book/journal)
86. Understanding Pregnancy and Birth (very basic)
87. Breastfeeding Facts for Fathers (booklet)

These, I can't remember if I actually read in 2010, or just wrote reviews of in 2010:
88. 25 Ways to Joy & Inner Peace for Mothers
89. Pregnant on Prozac
90.She Births
91. Get Me Out
92. L’Mazeltov
93. Birth Day
94. Birth Space, Safe Place

And, these, I found on a separate list and realized I DID read 100 books in 2010 after all!

95. The Geography of Bliss (book club)
96. The Life Organizer (loved it)
97. Listening to Our Bodies
98. The Feminine Face of God
99. YogaFit (for prenatal yoga teacher training)
100. Heart of the Goddess (pictures/painting and accompanying stories)
101. Really, Truly Ruthie (American Girl book)
102. Meet Rebecca (AG)
103. Meet Julie (AG)
104 The Vagina Warriors ($1 Shop find)
105. The Inner Dance (guided meditations. Did not like).

Woot! On to 2011! I have about 15 books in progress right now ;-D

And More

Recently I've finished re-reading Shelter for the Spirit: How to Make Your Home a Haven in a Hectic World. I saw the author speak in person at a Speaking of Women's Health conference several years ago. Nice, nurturing simple living read (with additional bonus of a short appendix with sections about homebirth and homeschooling :). It inspired me to change my Facebook profile quote to: "A simplified home feels friendlier. A simplified life seems easier. And remarkable joy comes from simple things--like having work to do that matters, and having people to love who matter a lot."

I also re-read Mother's Intention: How Belief Shapes Birth. Lots of good stuff in this one, though it does get repetitive after a while. She has a particular way with analogies that is just great--all kinds of good examples. She has a very straightforward, matter-of-fact style. I wish I could manage to be so honest/upfront with some of my childbirth education clients about "buying the hospital ticket and taking the hospital ride."

I read The Pocket Doula as well. It has lots of good pictures, no new information for me. Very conventional approach to standard interventions--doesn't question them at all.

I also read Fearless Fourteen and Finger-Lickin' Fifteen. Nothing like a little "dessert" every once in a while! :)

I think there may have been some others also, but I'm not keeping them in a to-blog-about pile anymore so I lose track!

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Lady of the Snakes

Our August book club read was the fiction book Lady of the Snakes. As you will soon read, I'm changing my approach to this blog and basically "retiring" it, so I will just go ahead and share briefly the quotes I'd marked from it (only two):

"This is what women's lives are like...It had never occurred to her--not really--that women's lives were so deeply different from men's. Now she saw it, and it shocked her."

I recall a similar moment in my own life after my first son was born--my husband went back to work and all of the sudden I was like, my whole WORLD has changed and he is going along basically business as usual. I felt like it was unfair, in a sense, to BOTH of us--me for having to undergo what I experienced as an often painful transition of self from autonomous woman to mother on my own, and for him having his own transition so ignored/unacknowledged by our culture that he was expected to just return to work like nothing had happened.

Quoting from the Russian diarist:

"In moments of despair I have felt each new child like another silken thread binding up my soul. But on happier days I see each one--not so much as a new beginning, but as a new note in a complex harmony, adding depth and resonance to a tapestry that already exists."

"Jane Levitsky sat at her desk thinking of the different moods of motherhood--joyful, oppressive, tedious. Peaceful. Exhausting."

This reminded me of something else I used to say/feel: How is it possible to simultaneously feel so captivated and yet captive, bonded and also bound?


55

Prep

I didn't post last week because my power was out as a result of a "derecho" in our area. I did finish reading a fiction book called Prep (thanks, Hope!), by the dim light of my book light while lying on the floor in the dark house. I was oddly entranced by the book, though every time I put it down I would say, "I should just quit reading this, I'm not getting anything out of it." It was about a teenage girl attending boarding school on a scholarship. She is intensely self-conscious and pretty much just spends her time analyzing other people and thinking about herself/her personal issues as well as mooning after a jerky boy she barely knows but loves. This makes the book sound much more shallow than it actually was--it was a very developed book and really intensive as far as angst/emotional content/in-the-character's-head. There was an almost painful authenticity to the narration. A look at what (possibly) goes on inside people's heads, really--"ugly," weird, socially anxious stuff, that you don't see on the surface. Though the book is about teenagers, it was written for adults. I found it kind of depressing overall, but also liked it, so...

41

Journey Into Motherhood

I didn't get a chance to make my usual Saturday post because my internet connection was down. So, now I have time for a few brief words:

I read: Journey into Motherhoodby Sheri Menelli. This is a phenomenal collection of inspiring birth stories. I love it! Plus, you can download it from her site as a free e-book. I really recommend this one!

I also read New Moon (second Twilight book). This one was pretty bad. I'm not sure if I will read the others now! An example quote: "At least I could be with him again before I died. That was better than a long life." PUH-LEEZE!

Plus, I finished Brought to Bed: Childbearing in America 1750-1950. This one took me a little while to wade through and is didn't "hook" me enough to keep me coming back to it rather than starting (and finishing) other books while reading it. It was interesting though. As it sounds it was basically a history of childbirth in America during those years. It really explores the move from home to hospital and themes like women's social power in the birth room and over birthing in general (and how that was given away after the move to the hospital, but also, how women *wanted* to go to the hospital and advocated heavily for pain medications, etc.) I will be writing more about it on CfM.

Last but not least, I got BIRTH (the book version of Karen Brody's play) for my birthday yesterday and read it last night. It was a quick read. I wish I could see the actual play, because reading it is just not the same. It did make me want to perform it though! It was good.

40

The Fox Woman

Just a few minutes ago I finished reading The Fox Woman, our book club read for May (should have waited a little longer to read it, because I may possibly forget it all by the time the end of May rolls around!). Short version: this book is a retelling of a Japanese fairy tale about a fox that becomes a woman in order to sort of "trap" the man she loves into being with her (the "fox magic" creates a sort of illusory world that he lives in with her for 10 years, but to the outside world it is only 3 months and he is living in a fox den that is all dirty and so forth--the magic makes him think he is in a fancy house). It was unclear to me at the end, but I believe she was staying a woman at the end of the book. It was very engaging, though I didn't really bond with the characters specifically--a lot of the book was about identity and knowing oneself and as such, you didn't really get to "know" the characters (because they didn't really 'know" themselves and their relationships were based on illusion and lies or "masks" that people present to try to be perfect, not reality). The story shifts back and forth between three narrators (the fox, the man, and his human wife).

A couple of quotes I marked from it:

"...when I am so alone, I do not have to be any of these things. For this moment, I am wholly myself, unshaped by the needs of others, by their dreams or expectations or sensibilities. But I am also lonely. With no one to shape me, who stands here watching the moon, or the stars, or the clouds. I feel insubstantial, as if the wind might suddenly dissolve me, like a weak mist."

Of course one about birth :) (this is the fox woman while pregnant):

"...I knew in my blood and bones that pregnancy was not supposed to be a complicated thing. One got pregnant and continued to hunt and sleep and eat. One prepared several dens, and when the time came one crawled into one of them, and after a small amount of pain, one delivered one or two or three or four kits..."

After she becomes a woman and marries the man: "A woman's life is shadows and waiting."

After the man is found my his human wife and goes back to that world/life: "Life is better lived as an adventure than as a work of art, I think."

When the fox woman is talking to a goddess about "but what will happen?" in the future/to her, etc.: "'Live and find out. Life guarantees nothing, not even itself.'"

And the conclusion: "None of us...are human unless and until we claim it for ourselves....and our lives become the poems we were born to tell."

29

Periodicals

Continuing my Janet Evanovich kick this week (my mom keeps checking them out of the library & then passing them along to me), I read Lean, Mean Thirteen. And, it was actually the only book I read. This is primarily because it is March now and along with nice weather, the spring issues of the various quarterly publications I subscribe to have also been arriving! So, I've been reading all of those instead of books. I got Brain, Child, which I always adore. One of the things I enjoy about it (I enjoy this about Hip Mama too, which I also got and read recently) is that it explores subjects/experiences that are totally outside of my own realm of experience. I love the window into other people's lives/worlds. So anyway, this Brain, Child issue had an article in it about noncustodial mothers. One of the things it addressed was the reasons why some mothers do not have physical custody of their children and how the snap judgment seems to always be that she must have been neglectful, or abusive, or drug addicted, or have run away to "find herself," when the reality is often more mundane and/or complicated than that. In other words, there are lots of mothers who do not have physical custody of their children who are not "bad mothers." A comment was made about something that I've observed myself: "A father pushing his child in a stroller draws charmed smiles--Wow, what a great dad, helping out!--from people who wouldn't look twice at a woman behind the stroller, just doing her job." Another article was about "hard partying, tough questions" and addressed how/when to share your messy and/or sordid past with your children (like I said, broadening my horizons!). And yet another was about using bad/inappropriate language around your children. Love this magazine!

I also got my copy of DONA's International Doula with my "Respecting the Birth-Breastfeeding Continuum" article published in it. This was my first publication that was actually a "cover story"/feature on the cover, so that was exciting! :) (Speaking of articles, some issues of the IJCE are online now. The June 2008 issue has my WBW article in it and the September issue has my "Satisfaction with Birth" article in it. And then speaking of breastfeeding and of writing, I wrote a lot about it on CfM this week).

I also got my first issue of The Journal of Perinatal Education (Lamaze's publication) this week. I enjoyed it quite a lot as well. I'm still working my way through this quarter's Midwifery Today and got other publications this week like Oregon Humanities and the Missouri S & T Alumni magazine (two copies of it, I'm not yet sure why...) and Habitat World. I know it doesn't make special sense for me to get Oregon Humanities, but it is actually a really good and interesting publication and I find it thought-provoking.


23

Special Women

I had a good week this week (except for a very tragic incident with one of our chickens on Thursday that cast a pall over the remainder of of the week :( ). My happiest news was that I got my ICEA exam results on Monday (only a week after having taken the exam) and I passed and am now an ICCE (ICEA Certified Childbirth Educator). I was SO ready for this! I feel a little odd and also free now that I am no longer studying for it. Studying was absorbing a lot of my "free time."

I also got my copies of Midwifery Today with my Birth Lessons from a Chicken essay published in it (the chicken refers to a literal chicken, not to be "chicken" about birth). I'm proud of this one :) This was my third MT publication. Last year, I couldn't even imagine having one! (If anyone wants to read it, I'd be happy to email it to you).

Another high point was finding Obstetric Myths vs. Research Realities at Goodwill, plus some other birth-related books. One of those was Special Women and I read it this week. It was pretty much a description of the role of the "professional labor assistant"and some elements of the business end of doula practice. Not too much "how to" or skills. It was also more of a look at the role of a monitrice, because there seemed to be an assumption that clinical assessments would be part of the labor assistant's role (I think the role of "doula" has been more explicitly clarified as "non-clinical" since this book was written. The edition I was reading was revised in 2000). The book used a hooked diamond pattern symbol throughout (of which the DONA logo is a more stylized version). This is a birth symbol and represents both the uterus and vagina and is apparently a counterpart to the phallic symbol (though less widely known/recognized as such). I just found an article online about it.I also continued my Janet Evanovich kick by reading Plum Lovin'. And then tonight finished reading her Eleven on Top. Again, some fun little treats for me.

Finally, I wanted to mention that in Ode magazine this month I read a letter to the editor mentioning Francis Moore Lappe's book Getting a Grip. "She states that we must call ourselves 'buyers' or 'purchasers' rather than consumers" (because consume means to use up and we have piles in landfills). I thought this was a good reminder.

Okay, I'm not very gifted with words tonight and this is kind of a dullsville post. Oh well! At least I'm staying updated!

22

The Big Book of Birth

This week I greatly enjoyed reading The Big Book of Birth. It is by Erica Lyon of Realbirth, who I first heard of when I read her awesome quotes in Pushed. Anyway, this was a basic "guide to birth" type of book, so I didn't necessarily learn anything new from it, but I hope that lots of pregnant women pick this one up to read instead of What to Expect. The emphasis of this book was on giving birth, not on pregnancy. The author's writing style was great--very engaging and *real* seeming. It is written in a sassy, lively, conversational sort of style that really made the book very readable and good. There were a variety of birth stories shared (broken up into the "right" chapters, which made it a little hard to follow them sometimes). I did feel sad reading some of them because the mothers didn't seem to *get* in hindsight what had really happened--i.e. "the doctor said the baby was 10 pounds and so a cesarean would make sense" and then baby is born and is 8.5 pounds and there was no further "analysis" about the cesarean being unwarranted.

I have a lot of quotes marked to share on my birthy blogs. Here's a quick one though: "You do not have to be a particularly strong or brave or relaxed woman to get through labor. You just need to be a woman." And then one from one of the birth stories: [in response to someone telling her that she got an epidural because it made the birth so much more peaceful] "I asked myself, Is birth meant to be peaceful? the feeling that I got after my birth was of pure triumph. I felt strong and able..."

I also zoomed through some "dessert"--Janet Evanovich's Twelve Sharp. Funny. Enjoyed it. Felt like a treat.

And on an unrelated note, I've mentioned before that we have cool big rocks on our land (behind our house). Today was a nice day and we went out to visit them!

19

Max Tivoli

This week I zoomed through The Confessions of Max Tivoli for book club. It was a swift read and I liked it so-so. It caught my attention (most fiction will!), but I found the endless references to his "aging in reverse" tiresome--I felt like yelling, "We GET IT already! Stop reminding us that he is getting younger instead of older. I REMEMBER!" And, as is sometimes the case, the title character wasn't that likeable. Kind of obsessive and sneaky.

I marked a semi-depressing quote to share:

"I couldn't fathom Hughie's belief that his son would accomplish wonders in the world, as if other worthy children, equally full of promise, and failed, and turned into men just like us, who would lay onto the next generation the same hopes, infintely deferred."

Though not in the same words, I used to wonder something similar after I had my first baby--you have to put so many things on hold in order to be responsive to a baby and small child and while I was telling myself it was worthwhile, I was also wondering: "What is the point? Each generation 'sacrifices' and defers goals for their children and to what end? So those children can do the same for their children and so on and so forth...When does someone finally get to actually change the world themselves, rather than waiting for their kids to do it?!" Told you it was depressing (I think perhaps I was actually depressed at the time).

15

Other Reads

This week I also read a totally junky novel called Younger. It was about a woman who was recently left by her husband for another woman and also had her newly adult daughter join the Peace Corps. So, she is alone in New Jersey after an adult lifetime as a SAHM caring for others. She goes to NY and passes herself as much younger (like 25 instead of 44), hooks up with a cute, young man and has a hot time with him, etc. etc. Pretty poor quality fiction, but I zoomed right through it. Sometimes I need a book like this as a "treat" after all the thinking I do about weighty issues!

I then read As Good as I Could Be. This was a parenting memoir and I also zoomed through it quickly, because it was paced more like a novel. One thing that jumped out at me is her mention that most children (including her daughter) start school at age two. Excuse my "language," but WTF?! I guess she is referring to what I would usually call, "day care," not "school" (for a two year old!). The child, of course, doesn't want to go to "school." The author refers to it as, "the worst of separation traumas my daughter and I grew up through was the trauma of her going to school....At first she went to the kind of school...When it was time for a real school--she was two years old at this point...I took her up there for testing." Again with the WTF? I guess I do live in a backwoods area, because this kind of process is completely out of my realm of experience. Taking a two year old to a "real school" that she has to be tested for? Yikes! I look at little Z--also two--nursing to sleep and still being carried around a lot of the time and picture him bopping off to "real school." No way! That's crazy talk!

Wonder Child

This weekend I made my way through several other books.

First was Wonder Child, an odd little tome I picked up at Goodwill a few months ago. I guess I wasn't in the proper mood for it or something, but ended up skimming through to the end. It was a little too New Agey and "woo woo" for my taste and also just plain didn't make sense a lot of the time (probably because what it was about was re-experiencing what it is like to be a child in order to better appreciate your own children and to better appreciate life in general. I guess if I've lost touch with my childlike nature--the premise of the book--then no wonder it didn't make sense to me a lot of the time! LOL!). There were a number of activity suggestions in it for getting in touch with your own childlike sense of wonder, etc. Some of them were interesting and neat, others were strange. It is hard to describe this book appropriately. It was odd. In the section on birth it referenced a book I'd never heard of called Active Birth Partner's Handbook by Janet Balaskas. So, of course, I went to Amazon just now and ordered it! (Luckily there was one cheap $6 copy that had my name on it!)

I also treated myself to a thoroughly lightweight, not-memorable fictional read--See Jane Date--single twenty-something gal in NYC seeking love on disastrous series of blind dates, etc.

I also finished reading the ICEA Guide for Childbirth Educators, which I've read several times before. Published in 1988, it is still helpful and relevant. Last I checked they were clearancing out copies on their website and on ebay for 75 cents! Well worth it! (Actually, it is worth much more than that! $15-20 would be more than reasonable for it.)

Sons & Mothers

Earlier this week I finished reading a collection of essays called Sons & Mothers that I picked up at the book sale in Columbia this fall. It was relatively unremarkable (odd cover image of a woman squatting--in profile--wearing only a bathing cap sort of thing on her head and a newborn baby on her back??). When I read the intro, I was expecting deeper, more thought provoking content than I actually found. There were 8 essays from mothers, 8 from sons (not pairs).

A good quote though: "I also believe that C-minus is the top mark for motherhood. Each generation strives to build faster, cleaner planes, trains, and automobiles and to be better parents than their own. Without this margin for error, there can be no growth, no development" [as a species].

This is hard for me to swallow as a quintessential 4.0 overachiever student type. I like A's dangit! LOL! ;-)

I've been sick with a nasty flu with a bad headache as the "centerpiece" so I also read the lightweight & semi-trashilicious book The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc. Southern belle shakes up small hometown when high school boyfriend shows back up after 14 years away. Set in 1956 in Louisiana and explores racism and sexism as sub-themes.

Knitting Under the Influence

My mom lent me another one of her knitting books and I gobbled it up today. I like a nice dose of fiction after a lot of nonfiction reads. Like dessert :) Knitting Under the Influence was lightweight and kind of trashy almost, but I had fun reading it. It was about three single women who have a knitting circle each Sunday morning wherein they share their love life woes, etc. In the end, they all end up happily paired off with their perfect matches, who are, of course, the guys who did NOT seem well suited to them in the beginning of the book and *surprise* they fell in love. Each was v. predictable, but still like, "yay! I knew she would love him eventually!" There wasn't as much knitting as I expected either, though each section of the book had a knitting title like, "Yarn Over" for the final section.

I also stumbled a bit on the therapist character's various "treatment" techniques for working with children with autism. They basically seemed to involved making the kids cry a lot and so I didn't think those parts of the book sounded genuine. Then, I read the author's note at the end and she has a son with autism and actually co-wrote a book called Overcoming Autism. So....methinks all the crying in order to "train" the kids to have "good behavior" was based in real life after all...

The Mother's Guide to the Meaning of Life

Of course, I received many lovely books as gifts this year which will keep me reading and posting for quite some time to come. I got a short little book called The Mother's Guide to the Meaning of Life which I read Christmas evening in about 30 minutes. I wanted it because the subtitle is "What I've Learned in my Never-Ending Quest to Become a Dalai Mama." Dalai Mama--I love it! Aside from that little touch of genius, I didn't really glean a whole lot from the actual book. Kind of funny with a lot of cute little line illustrations (like of her "Palm Pilot"--the palm of her hand with lots of notes written on it. ;-) I have one of those too!) She talked briefly about questing for perfection--"if you really were a perfect mother, everyone would hate you"--and quoted The Mother Dance author Harriet Lerner regarding perfectionism as the archenemy of mothers. Coincidentally, I also got The Mother Dance for Christmas and later in the evening when I opened it up to skim through I randomly opened to that same quote about perfectionism. Funny, eh?!

I also read Riddle of the Prairie Bride. This was a predictable "history mystery" for preteen girls (I bought it on clearance from American Girl and gave it to my mom to stuff my stocking with). Widowed father of 12 year old Ida Kate sends for a mail order bride. She arrives with her one year old baby and it soon becomes clear that something is amiss. She does not meet her description from her letters, gives inconsistent answers and so forth. Ida Kate investigates, mystery is solved, and true love reigns on the prairie. Why am I bothering to blog about this you may ask? Because, I keep an eye out for "breastfeeding as normal" content in kids books and I loved that in this mystery the first clue that the prairie bride is not who she says she is is that she didn't nurse her baby! (and, a one-year-old baby at that! Wow!) "She feeds him milk from a cup rather than nursing him as mothers do..." (Ida Kate notices the baby patting on the front of the mystery woman's dress and instead of nursing him, she gets a cup of milk for him). I also liked the use of the word "nurse" instead of "breastfeed." Cozy, familiar, desirable, and NORMAL. (With the emphasis on the process and not the product as Diane Wiessinger would say.)

The children's books the Royal Diaries and the other historical fictional diaries in that series of books also often mention breastfeeding and I like that about them (I appreciate it because it is NOT necessary for the content of the book, but it adds a nice touch of realism and normalness). Also, I just remembered that in one of the AG short stories--Josefina's Reward I think---her older sister has to hurry back from what she is doing to "nurse the baby" (who is also over one year old and walks and talks in the book).

Random Reads

Friday was my oldest baby's birthday--I can barely believe he is FOUR! We had a really fun party at the park after having spent a sort of stressful morning at home trying to bake the cake, cookies to decorate, etc. I overplanned a bit and should have probably chosen one activity instead of having "decorate your own cookie," paint a plaster Halloween magnet (I made the plaster things earlier), make a foamie Halloween guy, have a pinata, eat cake, open presents. It was a little much. L loved his Darth Vader costume and looked really cute in it. The helmet I got is really cool.

Anyway, I didn't blog on his birthday, so I'm breaking my "post only on Fridays" schedule and posting today instead. I know it is kind of weird to have *nothing* posted and then suddenly a big rash of posts all on one day, so I'm considering saving a bunch of "drafts" each Friday and then releasing them throughout the week, so that content is new more than just on Fridays....

This past week I read a variety of random books, mostly courtesy of the recent book sale I went to (and these were some non-sellers, so I read 'em).

Most recently, I finished The Coffin Quilt, historical, young adult fiction about the feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys. I gobbled it down, but then after I stayed up way too late finishing it, I didn't actually like it very much. This is one reason why I don't read much fiction--I have no self control and gobble them up regardless of quality! The book is by Ann Rinaldi who also wrote Wolf by the Ears (historical fiction about the children of Thomas Jefferson and his slave, Sally Hemmings). In a small bit of personal history, Wolf by the Ears was the first book I ever reviewed in my life. I was 15 and wrote a review of it for our short lived homeschooler publication "Prism."

Earlier, I also read The Power of a Penny. This was quick read of a short little inspirational book about the power of small things to make a real difference. I found a lot of it to be sort of trite or obvious and didn't learn anything new--it was not particularly creative or imaginative or fresh at all.

One True Thing

My mom lent me her book club read this month, One True Thing. I gobbled it up but it was super depressing :( It was the "uplifting" tale of a daughter caring for her 44 year old mother with cancer and all the details of her decline, suffering, and eventual death. Then the daughter is accused of mercy killing her mother and has to go on trial! What a book selection! I cried, I despaired at what is the point of life, etc. If I'm going to read some fiction, I should pick something lighter!

Speaking of fiction and gobbling...boy, did I gobble up Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows. It was so, so good! I think the books have gotten better and better. They've also gotten darker and darker. This one was sad and the body count rose with each page. I do think the books have lost the sense of enchantment that was present in the the earlier books--poor Harry is just jaded and numb and worn, no more marveling at the changing ceiling at Hogwarts or tasty chocolate frogs or pumpkin juice...

At Home Motherhood

This week I read At Home Motherhood. It had been on my wish list at Amazon for a while and got down to like $1, so I bought it. It is really late on this, my appointed blog day, & so I'm going to have to leave it at that. It was a good book & offered me some good insights/food for thought. It wasn't what I expected really--I think I was looking for something that was going to say, "cut back on your other interests & make the kids your mission," but this book was very supportive of at home mothers pursuing their passions & actually made me feel much better about all the stuff I squeeze in around the edges--like it is important to my full development as a woman :-) I'd marked a bunch of pages, but don't have time to transcribe them now.

One evening I was putting some books away--deciding what belongs in my to-read-someday-but-probably-not-very-soon-and-maybe-never box and what belongs on my to-read-next bookshelf--and I accidentally started reading The Nanny Diaries. I've read it before, but it was several years ago. So, before I knew it, it was after 2:00 a.m. and the book was finished (I started it at like 11:30). This is why I don't read fiction very often--because I will not get enough sleep and will be all glassy-eyed from excessive book consumption without a break for food or water ;-)

This week I also read the summer issue of Midwifery Today. There was an interesting article in it about "life as an apprentice." Reinforced that it is not the path for me during this season of my life. I don't know how people manage it! There was also a good article about using media to educate about birth. I'd like to use this blog for more birth education/advocacy than I currently do. Another good article was "reflections on the end of my career." Lots to think about--I think it is good for people just starting out to read/hear the reflections of those who are closing that chapter of their lives.

The Birth House

On Thursday, I stayed up too late finishing The Birth House. While it kept me turning pages and was an interesting story, I was left feeling a little disappointed. It wasn't really what I expecting, I guess (most notably, there was not as much content about birth or midwifery). Also, I didn't necessarily click with the "literary scrapbook" style--it seemed a little "dramatic" and improbable at times or otherwise disjointed. The author's style reminded me of Catherine Cookson--lots of downtrodden women, rape, abuse, etc. The story was set during WWI, but I kept feeling like it was earlier--like 1850 and so my mental images of the women were "off" a little--i.e. some of the women got their hair bobbed and I was thinking, "hey, aren't they wearing bonnets on the prairie?" That wasn't the author's fault though! Some of the characters form a women's group called the "Occasional Knitters Society" and I really enjoyed the sections about that group--it was a strong core of women that pulled together to support each other.

Of course, I was reminded of our current efforts in MO to legalize midwifery, in the book's portrayal of the doctor arriving nearby and building a "safe, clean maternity home" with "pain free childbirth" and encouraging all of the women to stop receiving midwifery care ("not safe" or "hygienic"). Ugh! Sounds all too familiar! The main character, Dora, apprentices as a midwife with the elderly Bay midwife in her small community in Nova Scotia. However, as I referenced earlier, Dora only ends up attending like 5 births in the book (382 pages). The rest of it is about other elements of her life, her marriage, etc. While this isn't *bad*, it just wasn't what I was expecting from a book called The Birth House and the jacket copy that leads one to believe that it is a book about a birth house (save one, the only births that actually take place in the house happen in the epilogue or in foreshadowing, but no detail/story).

Barbara Kingsolver

Last week, I got into a "fiction" mood and read High Tide in Tuscon by Barbara Kingsolver. The book isn't actually fiction, but is a series of essays from her life experiences. She is one of my all time favorite fiction writers though, which is why my mood led me to her book. Reading it then led me to read another one of her books that I had my shelf, Animal Dreams. I've read it before, but it has been like 6 years, so it was fun to read again. She is such a talented writer. The book is about two sisters (one is the narrator and the other one is never really "in" the book, just talked about by the narrator sister) who were born and raised in a tiny town in Arizona. The second sister goes to Nicaragua (following the 1979 revolution) to help them rebuild/restructure and rehabilitate their cropland. The narrator sister returns to hometown to sort of re-find herself (she has been "floating" sort of, through her life without a sense of roots or direction). The book is an interesting blend of flashback (told in present tense), dreams/hallucinations, and present time, with little distinction between them--you eventually figure out as you are reading, "oh, this isn't actually happening right 'now.'"

A quote I liked from Animal Dreams--"people worry a lot more about the eternity after their deaths than the eternity that happened before they were born. But it's the same amount of infinity, rolling out in all directions from where we stand." (Of course, technically speaking the eternity before we were born isn't infinite, really, because at some actual point in history humans as we know them showed up, but it might as well be infinite as far as our individual lifespans are concerned!) The quote appeals to me, because of my obsession with meaning and what really matters in life, etc.

More another time...I have SO much more time to read than I actually have to write about what I read. I have all these thoughts while I'm reading that I'm desperate to share about. Then, time passes--another day, another book and those thoughts become lost before I get a chance to write (or, I have such a backlog of things/thoughts I want to write about, that I have to let go of the things that came before. Maybe a good life lesson?)

(added finally on 3/26) In a discussion in High Tide regarding preparations for war:

"Any talk of closing down a military base raises defensive and reverent ire, no matter how wasteful an installment it might be. And yet, public debate dickers and rages over our obligation to fund the welfare system--a contributions of about $25 from each taxpayer on average, for keeping the poorest among us alive. How can we haggle over the size of this meager life preserver, while shiploads of money for death sail by unchallenged?" So true! One more reason to reduce our income to below taxable level (federally)--taxes are one of our largest annual expenses.

Later in the book upon reflecting on Thoreau and the intensity of study he engaged in:

"What a life it must have been, to seize time for this much wonder. If only we could recover faith in a seed--and in all the other complicated marvels that can't fit in a sound bite. Then we humans might truly know the glory of knowing our place."