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?

Maren's Christmas Present

I started a tradition this year of giving Maren a very special book at Christmas time.

One that I have chosen very carefully and that she'll keep in a box for years and years to come. Or, at least, until she thinks that the tradition is bunk and discards them :)

This year I gifted a gorgeous collection of Hans Christian Anderson's fairy tales. Because now is a time for magic and wonder.

I've already purchased next year's book. Gyo Fujikawa's Mother Goose.  I love her gorgeous illustrations.  This book will help me remember the nursery rhymes I really should know.  Humpty Dumpty and all that.

Now if I was really getting ahead of myself, I would pick up one of the Puffin Books children's classics for sale.  They just happen to be at my fav store Anthropologie.  Anne of Green Gables, The Secret Garden, Peter Pan.  How does one decide?

Restraint, Jen.  Seriously.  She can't even read yet.

Literary Resolutions

This new year, I commit myself to the following book goals.

1) Go to more author events. Talking Volumes, etc. Meet another personal book hero.
2) Go to storytime with Maren at Red Balloon or Wash Cty Library.
3) Support the local Newport library! Visit monthly.
4) Finally read the Allende or Uris book sitting on my shelf collecting dust.
5) Comment on reader's blogs and share my blog with fam and friends.
6) Re-design read52books.blogspot and post books read pre 2010.
7) Buy artwork for the blank wall in my library.
8) Read a classic.
9) Visit Wild Rumpus.
10) Cut out even more TV and maintain reading time when I return to work.

These, I hope, are resolutions I can keep.

What in the world of books do you wish for this year?

A Retrospective.

The Year in Review.  53 books + 2666 (a book I never should have opened).  I made it! 
So many lovelies . . . and my favorite book of the year - the Book Thief.
My favorite book "moment" of the year - meeting Anna Quindlen in person.  Bucket list check.

I've bolded my favs below.

Lunch in Paris by Elizabeth Bard
Operating Instructions by Anne Lamott
What Now? by Ann Patchett
Healthy Sleep Habits, Healthy Child
Babywise
The Baby Whisperer
The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachmann
The Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick
Ms. Hempel Chronicles by Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
Down Came the Rain by Brooke Shields (and her editor)
It Sucked and Then I Cried by blogger Heather Armstrong
Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed by Mo Willems
Eaarth by Bill McKibben
Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
The Widower's Tale by Julia Glass
Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
Bad Mother by Ayelet Waldmann
Little Bee by Chris Cleave
Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Deep Economy by Bill McKibben
Eating Pomegranates by Sarah Gabriel
Not Becoming My Mother by Ruth Reichl
Ina May's Guide to Childbirth by the notorious Ina May

Healthy Child, Healthy World by Christopher Gavigan
Heading Home with your Newborn by Jana and Shu
Halfbroke Horses by Jeanette Walls
The Power of Purpose by Richard Leider
The Gathering by Anne Enright
Eating Animals by Jonathan Safron Foer
The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larson
2666 by Robert Bolano
Tinkers by Paul Harding
Nurtureshock by Po Bronson
Your Best Birth by Ricki Lake
The Alice Walker book
The Art of Eating In by Cathy Erway
Marriage and Other Acts of Cruelty by Kate Braestrup
Baby Proof by Emily Giffin
Every Last One by Anna Quindlen
The Cement Garden by Ian McEwan
The Outlander by Gil Adamson
Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenberger
The Master Butcher's Singing Club by Louise Erdrich
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin
American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld
The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak
The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
The Help by Kathryn Stockett
In Praise of Slowness by Carl Honore
Traveling with Pomegranates by Sue Monk Kidd

the one that glitters and sparkles.

oh how I loved this book.  like literary candy for me.  take one part travel, one part coming of age memoir & another part foodie prose. there is no better combination for me.  i relished in the recipes and french phrases sprinkled throughout.  i remembered the yummy taste of Berthillon ice cream and Laduree macaroons from a visit to the City of Lights years ago.

the stinker Matt is going back to Paris the first week in April.  and I am slowly realizing that our daughter will experience world travel yet another year.  c'est la vie.

lest you think this book was junk chick lit, a thoughtful examination of French vs. American attitudes lies within.  is it better to strive for pleasure or success? less or more?  the author remembers yearly "ladies days" when her mother would take her for lunch at an exquisite French restaurant and out to a Broadway matinee. 

with babe in my arms, I dream of fancy excursions to come and a life more simple and refined. and yes, many, MANY macaroons.  I am an American at heart.

the one that spoke to my soul.

A new friend suggested that I read Operating Instructions by Anne Lamott.  I had it on my shelf already.  Went through a Lamott phase 5 years ago and there it sat gathering dust.  I'm so glad she suggested it.

A couple lines that gave me pause and/or made me laugh:

"I just can't get over how much babies cry.  I really had no idea what I was getting into.  To tell you the truth, I thought it would be more like getting a cat." 
(ditto.  this is harder than raising Chloe and Chloe's legacy goes without saying).

"His hands are like little stars."

"Life has got to be bigger than death, and love has got to be bigger than fear or this is all a total bust and we are all just going tourist class."

And my personal favorite:
"while we are on earth, our limitations are such that we can only see the underside of the tapestry that God is weaving.  God sees the topside, the whole evolving portrait and its amazing beauty, and uses us as the pieces of thread to weave the picture."

There.  Two things I never, ever thought I would post about: motherhood and God.  But, reading this book I'm inspired by both.  Life doesn't make much sense right now to me but it does in the whole big scheme of things.  Schmalzy but true.