bookrblog

Baby Books

Sunday, July 25th, 2010 | Uncategorized | No Comments

I am now 19 weeks pregnant which is nearly halfway. I have just counted the number of baby/birth/pregnancy type books that I have read so far. It’s nearing thirty . . .

• Misconceptions (Naomi Wolf).  Brilliant, a must-read.
• Motherlove, 1 & 2 (debra adelaide). Great range of stories by women.
• Birthing from Within (Pam England). Practical & thoughtprovoking
• Ina May’s Guide to Childbirth (Ina May Gaskin). Interesting, mostly stories.
• Gentle Birth, Gentle Mothering (Dr Sarah Buckley). Nice, but a bit unbalanced
• Lady’s Hands, Lion’s Heart (Carol Leonard). Hysterically funny, very sad, story of a midwife
• Birth (Tina Cassidy). A bit grotesque but very informative about the male takeover of birth.
• The Midwife (Jennifer Worth). Fascinating story of a 1940’s East Ender midwife.
• Babycatcher (Peggy Vincent). Funny and sad story of a US midwife as insurance disappeared.
• A Midwife’s Tale (Penny Armstrong). Great story of a midwife working among the Amish
• Labor of Love (Cara Mulhuln). A NY midwife who comes across as more than a little unbalanced.
• Having a Great Birth in Australia/Men at Birth (David Vernon). Stories of births.
• Birth Skills (Juju Sundin). A workbook of exercises to get through the pain - except her co-writer couldn’t and had an epidural - which kinds of nullifies her theories, doesn’t it?
• Baby on Board (Dr Howard Chilton). A good practical mainstream book on the first month or so of babycare.
• Up the Duff (Kaz Cooke). A pregnancy book aimed at the Dolly readers out there . . . inaccurate and silly.
• Your Social Baby (Lynne Murray). A beautiful book of photos and research on the first months of baby’s life.
• The Birth Wars (Mary Rose MacColl). A scary book about the war between midwives and Drs in Australia.
• Diary of a Baby (Daniel Stern). Covers the emotional life of a baby from 6wks to 4 years.
• The First Relationship (Daniel Stern). Covers the same information in more detail - emotion is everything!
• The Infant’s World (Phillipe Rochat). Current theories of child emotional development, as above, really.

I’ve also read a couple more book of birth stories (e.g. Birth at Home, Birth Stories, Simply Give Birth)- and some old books from the 60s and 70s (which make you very glad things have changed!!) as well as some random books from people’s bookshelves about pregnancy, eating in pregnancy, naming babies, etc. Probably the stories are the most useful, because you’re hearing the same things over and over again about the breast crawl and natural oxytocin and positioning and the importance of constant contact etc etc. However, which will have been the most useful in a year’s time? That will be interesting.

This Real Night

Wednesday, April 28th, 2010 | Uncategorized | No Comments

I stumbled across Rebecca West’s sequel to The Fountain Overflows at the library. What a find - it is a fantastic book. The children from the first book are now reaching young adulthood, having to accept their father’s death and the way in which they are different from other people in the world, and each other, too. It is in the age just before war, and somehow they know everything will be ended by the war, everything that is important in their lives.

She is such a wonderful writer; her characters are people you wish you  knew, and her insights evoke smiles and tears from the reader. I loved this book and I hope I can dig out the final unfinished novel  in the trilogy.

Old Readers Digest Books

Sunday, March 21st, 2010 | Uncategorized | No Comments

I picked up a couple of old hard-backed Readers Digest condensed books the other day. What a variety of stories they contained. There was an interesting non-fic about heart transplants, written in 1969 just as they were starting the entire process. There was an enjoyable Rumer Godden novel about a nunnery. And there were a lot of pretty unreadable, forgotten books. They were probably the top reads of the year back when, to be condensed into Readers Digest format. And now they seem dated and silly - including the one set during a nuclear accident somewhere in small town America. But very entertaining to dip into, as an idea of what was seen as great writing thirty plus years ago.

Perfume

Saturday, March 6th, 2010 | Uncategorized | No Comments

I really did not enjoy this book by Patrick Suskind. And yet it’s internationally lauded. Why, I can’t tell. It had a “hero” who was thoroughly selfish and unlikeable, a world which was cartoonishly caricatured, and a really disgusting plot, where the main character boils people down to gain their scent. It was gross, graphic, and utterly distasteful. Not for me.

end of year post

Sunday, December 27th, 2009 | Uncategorized | No Comments

It doesn’t look as though I read very much this year, but it’s more I haven’t posted very much. I haven’t written reviews of all my re-reads or the books that were pretty poor. Best finds this year include:

• Graceling and Fire by Kristin Cashores
• On Human Bondage - fantastic.
• Roger Deakin. What an amazing man.
• John Muir! A wonderful person and writer.
• The Mitford sisters, incredible writers and unbelievable people - if they were fictional no one would believe them
• A Story Like the Wind - a beautiful tale.

These in no particular order, but all wonderful. Good to know that each year I can discover new and marvellous stories.

Merrily Merrily

Sunday, July 12th, 2009 | Uncategorized | No Comments

This is an unusual review - it’s a songbook from the australian breastfeeding association (www.mothersdirect.com.au) which was put together in 1979, and has been reprinted ever since. It is more than a list of songs - it includes ideas for fingerplays and activities, the sheet music to be played, and a CD to get the idea of the songs (and the songs are sung either by a preschool-teacher soundalike, or children, which is nice).

It is great to see familiar favourites alongside interesting additions including aboriginal songs and a few from other countries. It isn’t hugely multicultural, and some of the songs seem pretty sexist nowadays (e.g. “hands up daddy come home, daddy’s got money and mummy’s got none”)!

I think they should advertise this collection more, because it’s excellent, especially for new mums/dads who have forgotten the old songs.

The Magician of Hoad

Sunday, February 1st, 2009 | Children's Literature, Uncategorized | No Comments

By the end of the book I was interested enough, but not captured as her other books have captured me. I think it was the setting which never felt quite real enough, with characters who were never quite sympathetic enough. It didn’t grab me, although it was interesting to see that after so many years it’s the same issues which Mahy is writing about.

Books Over a Year

Sunday, October 5th, 2008 | Uncategorized | No Comments

After I lost my password for BookrBlog, I wasn’t able to keep writing reviews, so here’s a list instead of the books I have read since then. (Obviously, they’re not all the books I read in the last year; I’ve also had textbooks for my course, books I’ve re-read such as the entire “Little House on the Prairie” series, and books that were so bad that I wouldn’t want to record their existence.) I’ll keep up with writing reviews as I read after this. The books below aren’t in any order; just as I remember them, that’s all; I’ve starred the really good ones.

1. A Friend Like Henry: a nonf about a boy with ASD and his dog.
2. Dear Gabriel: a nonf story in letters from a Dad who is a writer to his son with ASD. *****
3. The Other Country: a nonf story by a Dad about his son with ASD.
4. Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks: a nonf about love of music.
5. The Brain that Changes Itself: a nonf about brain plasticity
6. The Boy who was Raised as a Dog: a nonf about treating childhood trauma
7. The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers: a political thriller that predicted WW1
8. Silence: a Japanese novel about the persecution of Christians last century
9. Shipwrecked: a Japanese novel about a poor village of shipwreckers
10. The Wheel on the School: Children’s Lit about a village in Holland, simple and beautiful
11. Grandfather’s Dance: Children’s Lit in the “Sarah Plain and Tall” series
12. Euclid’s Elements: I haven’t finished this, am getting through it one proposition at a time, but how can geometry be so fascinating and exciting? I can actually feel the lines in my head as I look and read and imagine this guy who discovered what you did to one triangle could work for a different looking triangle and a big one and a small one and … *****
13. Euclid in the Rainforest: a mathematician talks about how he found mathematics everywhere he went, travelling all over the world and discussing Pythagoras with shepherds and mayors and weird millionaires on the Mediterranean
14. Slow Journey South: a Australian nonf about a woman who is walking through Africa
15. My Reading Life by Bob Carr, his discussion of books he’s read, interesting but a little weird
16. The Survivor by Tom Keneally, an old novel I found, good but strange, about Antarctica and university politics
17. The Grass is Singing, a sad novel about South Africa
18. Einstein – biography by Michel White and John Gribben; maybe it was Autism or something like it – he was an odd man, that’s for sure
19. The Last Station – a novel about Tolstoy – I didn’t really like this
20. Night Fires by Joan Lingard, Children’s Lit
21. Nim’s Island, Australian children’s lit, better than the movie
22. And When Did You Last See Your Father? – This was sad but fascinating –
23. Saturnalia by Lindsay Davis, I loved her early books, now they’re all the same
24. Princess Academy, children’s lit, different fairytale
25. The Secret History by Donna Tartt – very interesting and frightening and full of drugs but are there really people like this in the 21^st century?
26. A Spoonful of Jam by Michelle Magorian, pretty good children’s lit about post ww2
27. A Fine and Private Place by Peter – it was all right, not brilliant, a fantasy
28. On Chesil Beach – initially I liked it – it was readable – but what was it trying to say? It was empty
29. October, a novel by Richard B Wright, I have no recollection of this so it can’t have been brilliant
30. The Morning Gift – very readable but mixed quality – children’s lit
31. A Mighty Heart – the sad true story of the woman whose husband got killed in Pakistan – but she did not do much
32. Gwen’s Story – this was quiet and interesting children’s lit pre ww2
33. The Fountain Overflows by Rebecca West – exceptional novel, so powerful and so different *****
34. The World According to Garp – brilliant and strange like Catch 22 but with less heart maybe
35. DragonMaster Series by Christ Bunch – utter crap fantasy
36. White Tiger/Dragon series by Kylie Chan – fantasy started off well and went downhill fast
37. The Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society – fantastic, beautiful and funny novel about the Nazi occupation of the Jersey Isles *****
38. Annis’ Exile – the first in the Farm School series – historically interesting children’s lit
39. The Silver Donkey – Australian children’s lit about ww1 – fairly ordinary
40. The Epic of Gilgamesh – totally surprising, so different from Beowulf, so beautiful and fascinating *****
41. The Trivium – having read “Zen and the art of Motorcyle M.” I realise that this is what he was complaining about – bits and pieces-y
42. Fatherland – really, a bit silly – why would someone living in that society by shocked by death?
43. Freya Stark: Passionate Nomad – an amazing life, sad in many ways, strange but incredible woman
44. Gertrude Bell: some other Nomad – see above, but even more incredible as she was earlier in history
45. Sequel to Ex Libris – not as good, quite mixed actually
46. The Uncommon Reader – I quite liked this, very British – but disliked his other two stories (All They Stood Up In/ Van Woman) – bit of a snob
47. Maquis – the absolutely incredible story of this British guy during WW2 – I only found out about him because of a cool book I picked up for 20c about him sailing through Europe post ww2, no idea he was a full on secret agent guy – really freaky
48. Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Gold – this was ok, historically very interesting but wasn’t particularly deep – man did women have it tough
49. Making the Cut: Surgeon’s Stories - a series of very moving stories based on truth by a Sydney surgeon - very well written, moving, and insightful about the current health system
50. The Temeraire Series by Naomi Novik – brilliant fantasy series involving dragons and the Napoleonic war – first one the best, the fifth the worst but still ok, and she’s keeping on keeping on – one of the best fantasy series I’ve read in a while *****

 For some reason Wordpress is eating the numbers; there’s fifty all up, anyway.

Romanitas

Wednesday, August 15th, 2007 | Uncategorized | No Comments

The concept of this book by Sophia MacDougall is interesting; the Roman empire never fell and still rules to this day. It’s just that the execution isn’t particularly well thought through. It’s the Roman empire just with technology. And the story – the heir is in danger of getting killed cause he wants to end slavery, so he runs away – doesn’t really hinge on it being now rather than two thousand years ago, so, seeing that the planes and cars and so forth only appear sporadically, you don’t usually remember it is supposed to be now. Which is a waste, and as you read you can’t help but nitpick – that Latin would have remained the same over two thousand years, and all the customs, and the clothing etc – the only change is that there’s electricity. The idea of then but now has been done before and done better, so it’s a real pity the author didn’t revel in the challenge. Anyway, the characters are well-drawn and interesting, the story races along and is written fairly well (except for the chopping and changing from place to person and back again) and it’s resolved at the end despite being a trilogy. A good concept, but a wasted one.

A Thousand Splendid Suns

Sunday, August 5th, 2007 | Uncategorized | No Comments

This book by Khalad Hosseini is more a potted history of Afghanistan, than a novel; it’s a member of the “life sucks for women” book club, and the “life sucks for people in non-Western countries” book club, too. Mariam is the unwanted daughter of a rich man and his housekeeper; she’s married off against her will at fifteen to Rasheed, is beaten by him, and miscarries every child. Laila, who has had a liberal upbringing, gets pregnant at fourteen to her childhood love Tariq, who goes to Pakistan just before her parents are blown up by a bomb. So she ends up quickly marrying Rasheed, having her lover’s daughter, and then a son by Rasheed. A close friendship develops between Mariam and Laila, and Mariam ends up giving up her life so Laila can have the freedom she never knew.

It’s a fast-paced novel, without much complexity. The details are interesting to me – many of the Farsi words are so close or the same as the Kurdish ones, and they also have the Titanic craze back in 1999 which swept Bangladesh and India. But in general it’s more a way of covering a lot of history through the lives of some poor suffering women. At least it has a happy ending, although I think the hopefulness of the little family at the end at the future of the new Afghanistan may be slightly misplaced – but then, hope is all they have.