the one I had a very visceral reaction to.

Room is narrated by a 5 yo boy, Jack, born and raised with his captive mother in a 12 foot square room. 

This book is loosely based off the true story of Josef Fritzl.  If haven't heard about Fritzl, look here:
Fritzl case 

Once I understood the plot of Room, I put off reading the book.  I've had enough intensity lately with Little Bee, the stupid Stieg Larsson books and the Hunger Games series.  Despite the fact that Room has been talked about all over the internet and was short listed for the Booker Prize, I really didn't want to read it.  But my sister RAVED about the book so I had to give it a try.

The book literally made me queasy.  I had to put the book down for a bit to take a break.  And then I COULD. NOT. STOP.  reading it.  As in reading past midnight, reading in the bathroom, reading when I really should be paying the bills and making dinner. 

I don't know what to say about this book.  There really isn't another book quite like it.   

p.s. Don't read too much about the book before you dive in.  Just dive in. 


p.p.s  I'm not necessarily recommending the book.  I'm just saying I had a visceral rx to it.


p.p.p.s  You needn't send me to a treatment program for book addiction.  I know I'm reading A LOT these days.  My baby has finally learned to nap & sleep and I have learned to embrace both January and a new found Type B personality.  I'm bound to hit a book rut eventually.

the precocious one.

Matt asked me what in the WORLD I was reading the other day.  I held a borrowed book that was torn, had a funky smell and a 80's style author bio on the back.  I told him "Rosie" and that I needed to HURRY it up because there's a long waiting list at the library for this book.

Anne Lamott is beloved by so many.  I love her too.  For living in Marin County, for creating such exquisite characters and for not shying away from the tough stuff (in this case, alcoholism and pedophilia).  She balances the subject matter well with kid hijinks & adult squabbling.

Rosie is the cutest, most devilish little child to grace the page in awhile.  I loved her temper tantrums.  I liked this book! but the ending caught me off guard.  It came on too fast and was a little too neat for my liking.   That said, I will totally read Crooked Little Heart and Imperfect Birds.

Is there a better way to spend a cold January day, really?

my kindle strategy!

aka: how I will support my book habit without completely breaking the bank.

When I hear about a book I want to read, I add it to my good reads "to be read" list. 
(I need to update this list!)
After reviewing (if I want to start collecting that author) then I add the novel to my half.com list.When I'm in a book buying mood or for holidays, I will buy books online for $1.00 or less.

When I'm done with my latest Kindle acquisition and my stack at home is low, I will purchase another.
Typically, on sale or non-fiction or an author I haven't met yet.

Let the Great World Spin is a perfect example.Haven't yet read Colum McCann, couldn't get at the library and on sale for 6 Kindle bucks.
I liked it, I really liked.  On to the half.com list it goes.

There are no brainer purchases for me.  Don't ever buy a Quindlen or a Mary Pipher or a Julia Glass book for me as a gift.  I know the release date and it's been pre-ordered.  Trust.  I've also purchased the latest Pulitzer and Caldecott and possibly the National Book Award.  I have special spots in my home for them all.

I realize I have an unhealthy addiction to books.  But, I can live with that.  I wear crappy shoes and I only care about the diamond on my hand.  Books are another story.

the one that gave me pause.

I love Kate Braestrup. She's a Unitarian law enforcement chaplain who lives in Maine. Her book about grief, Here If You Need Me, was balm to the soul a few years back. Back when I was reading a lot of books about cancer and death. I go in spurts. What can I say?

Her latest book (Beginner's Grace) is about bringing prayer into your life. I picked it up a few months ago when I was largely overwhelmed by my little infant's cries. It was making me a bit crazy. If an acid reflux baby doesn't make you find God, I don't know what will.

I'm not very good about religion. It's like a shoe that fits too tight on the toe. But, I believe that something is brewing in the universe and I long to be part of a community that will sustain my faith.

"Faith is the confidence that no matter what happens, love is always available - as action, as memory, as a gift from others, as a capacity in myself."  Kate Braestrup

This book is filled with prayers and an instruction manual on how to use them. For the last few months, I have been doing an impromptu prayer. When I notice the clock has turned the same number (2:22, 4:44, etc.) I say a prayer. It's always the same. "God help me to not complain, be patient with this moment and look for the joy swimming in my life." It's a call to attention for me. I take a deep breath and I move on with my day.

the one that helped me define my relationship with my Kindle.

Let The Great World Spin.  I turned the last page and was eager to place the book on my shelf.  Alas, all I could do was click the button and go back to my Kindle menu.  Tragic.

I'm on a book run lately but this novel made me stop in my tracks for a moment.  I wondered if the book was only about heroin addicts and hookers.  There is a depth to this book that I may or may not have grasped.

And beautiful words (clipped by my Kindle)
"This is not my life.  These are not my cobwebs.  This is not the darkness I was designed for."

"I guess this is what marriage is, or was, or could be.  You drop the mask.  You allow the fatigue in.  You lean across and kiss the years because they're the things that matter."

"Afterward, Gloria said to her that it was necessary to love silence, but before you could love silence you had to have noise."

I need this book.  And the Kindle doesn't count.

the one Heidi recommended.

I liked this book.  Although I feel funny putting it next to Wuthering Heights on my bookshelf.

More chapters to add: the daycare dilemma.  when to start solid foods?  to sippy cup or NOT to sippy cup?  Am I depriving my child the "exersaucer experience" by not buying her one?  Perhaps I am such a klutz in the kitchen because I didn't get that Easybake Oven I so dearly wanted?

So much controversy.  And now for cripes sake, the "tiger mother" declares that Chinese parenting is superior.  No sleepovers for Maren, I guess.

Amy Chua article

Will it never end?  This is the last parenting book I'm reading for awhile.  With the extra time, I'm going to start a daily yoga routine with Maren at home.  AND we'll be heading to Red Balloon storytime now that we've graduated from the New Parent group at Woodwinds Hospital. 

That's what my instincts are telling me anyways . . .

the one my sister gave me.

My sister reads this blog.  Occasionally.  And I don't think she'd be offended if I said that I was cooler than her.  Remember, cool is relative, folks.  (We're talking Woodbury cool, not Mpls cool).

Meaning:
I know that Hunter boots are the new Uggs. 
I know that pie is the new macaroon.  Cupcakes were so last decade.
I'm more of an Anthropologie sale rack versus a Loft gal.
I know that Natalie Portman is the IT girl of 2011.

And with books, I usually have the one up.  But my sister has now taken over.

I just read The Most Beautiful Book in the World by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt.  It was one of our Christmas trades that my sister wrapped up and passed on.  The Most Beautiful Book is an international bestseller in Europe and a compilation of eight novellas about happiness.  The premise, basically, that happiness is often right in front of our eyes although we may frequently be blind to it.

I gobbled this book up. Because it was fantastical, short and fundamentally cool.  And so is my sis.
 

the one I REALLY want to talk about.

Do I ever want to talk about this one.  Good thing BOTH book clubs are reading this month.

I loved this book because I learned SO much.  About cells and the Nuremberg trials and cancer and Tuskegee and how medical research took advantage of so many.  This is not my typical kind of book.  Let's just say I didn't enjoy Bio 21.  Yeah, I was a bio minor, whatever . . .

But this book combines the best of psychology, sociology and science.  My heart grieved for the Lacks family.  My opinion on tissue donation and legal battles is not firmed up yet but I do feel the Lacks family was dealt an injustice.   My favorite part of the book was when Christoph, the French researcher, gave the Lacks family a picture of Henrietta's cells.  I tried to imagine how I would feel if my mother's cells were sold round the world and had changed the world of science.  I couldn't.

I'm curious about Rebecca Skloot.  At times, I felt like she was really interfering in family business.  And yet, I'll always remember the name Henrietta Lacks.  In that way, she served the family well.   

Oh, and Oprah's making a movie on Henrietta Lacks. Soon everyone will know what HeLa cells are.

the one by Magda Gerber.

I'm on a roll in 2011.  I've promised to read fewer and fewer baby books.  But here we go again. 

Just finished Your Self Confident Baby by Magda Gerber on my Kindle.  This woman rocks in the same way that Ina Gaskin does.  Magda *and I LOVE the name Magda.  Next dog!* gives common sense advice.  She abhors the use of all these crazy containers we put kids in (highchairs, bouncy things, walkers, etc.)  She thinks we are "hurrying up" this generation of kids and not letting them do what babies do best.  Put them on their back and let them problem solve. 

I love parenting advice that basically states: get out of their way!  Wait, observe, listen . . .

A small update on the sleep literature I read.  Turns out we are a CIO family.  Lots of tears last night!

Now on to some adult reading.

(small clause: I did promise Heidi I'd read Instinctive Parenting.  One more!)

yet another one about Paris.

I just finished Sarah's Key by Tatiana De Rosnay. The novel is set in France and follows two stories. The Vel'd'Hiv round-up of Jewish citizens in Paris and surrounding suburbs. And a Parisian American woman coming to grips with a failed marriage.

I liked this novel and read it in two days flat! I would recommend it, esp if you liked the Guernsey book that so many of us have read.

This isn't fine literature but for some reason WWII and the Holocaust have an absolute hold over me.  I'm struck each time by the sorrow and how such a thing could come to be.  And so, any page that helps us remember, helps uncover such tragedy . . . Worthwhile in my book.

Have you read this one? Let's talk . . .

the one on the kindle!

Santa was VERY good to me this year. My fav gift was a housecleaner on New Year's Eve.  What a way to start 2011!  Highly recommended.

But a close runner-up was a surprise Kindle. I know, I know . . . I've moaned and groaned about Kindles. Thinking I would never, ever convert.

I must admit. I love my Kindle. So convenient. Helps me read SO quickly, plugging through the screens with a % update on the bottom showing your progress.  Easy to hold when rocking a babe back and forth, back and forth.

My first Kindle book purchase was Slow Death By Rubber Ducky by Rick Smith & Bruce Lourie.  I can't say enough about this book.  Actually, I can.  My husband is sick to DEATH from hearing about it.  I learned so much about the chemicals permeating our world, things we can do, things we can't do to avoid them.  I feel personally attached to this book because I believe in small and large part that my mother's breast cancer diagnosis stems from the pesticides that were present at her family farm.  Other variables too, I know.

This book isn't just sensational, alarming and preachy.  It's a good history on the usage of chemicals throughout time and the politics that surround them.  I want to read the book again and absorb more.  For now, I'm just trying to remember this mantra and pass it along.  For there is much evidence that BPA has frightening connections with breast cancer, ADHD and the like.

"4, 5, 1 and 2.  All the rest are bad for you."  Check those numbers on the bottom!

Oh, and did I mention that I LOVE my Kindle?