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.

the one that came in the mail.

As part of my budget plan, I signed up for paperback swap. You swap books with other members and only have to pay shipping costs for the ones you send out. You get a free book credit for all of those books you ship. It's been kinda fun and also helps me clean my shelf of less than desirable books.

http://www.paperbackswap.com/index.php

Ann Patchett is an author I collect. I didn't rave about Bel Canto like others but I really liked Truth and Beauty. She gave a commencement speech at Sarah Lawrence and the book What Now? stems from it.

I didn't like this book as much as Anna Quindlen's A Short Guide to a Happy Life.  Love.
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/A-Short-Guide-to-a-Happy-Life/Anna-Quindlen/e/9780375504617/?itm=10&USRI=anna+quindlen

Patchett  discusses being a waitress and how it was the best ever preparation for being a novelist.  And I thought about how working in a psych ward was distressing and hard but gave me such compassion for the diversity of people and the emotional struggles others go through - struggles they didn't necessarily ask for.  Working at Fairview was the most challenging job I've had yet in this lifetime and yet it changed me forever.

What Now? was only 97 pages but it made me think.

My favorite line? "It's up to you to choose a life that will keep expanding."

the ones that disagree.

I'm calling a halt to certain parenting books for the time being.
They all confuse me and encourage me not to trust the emerging instincts that parents are supposed to have.
I don't like how they cast judgment and try to fit families into a box. Matt, Maren and I just don't fit.

Babywise

Healthy Sleep Habits, Healthy Child

Dunston

Secrets of the Baby Whisperer

I'm too confused & sleep deprived to even comment on the strategies these books describe. I think it's clear my little one has a bit of the flux which may or may not go away with sugar and dairy deprivation or the passing of days. It's clear that my desperate attempts to research and discover the root of it all is making things worse. Our best days are when I embrace the cries, even the "phantom cries" I hear in my sleep.

I know I'll sleep again someday. It will never be quite as blissful as it once was.
I will never again sleep like a baby . . . whatever that means.

the one I'm totally on top of.

so proud of myself.  this book is not due until 2011 and yet I FINISHED!
not going to say much here . . . would rather save comments for book club.
BUT I liked it, I kinda liked it.
this was a book that developed.  i wanted to get to know the characters.
the humor was quirky and nice. 
felt a little like Love Actually the way the plot weaved in and out.

so book clubbers, resolve in 2011 to read this one.  if I can do it, so can you!

the one about despair.

This was not a book to read Thanksgiving week.  The December pic for my Stillwater book club was A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick.  Worst. Book. Ever.

I'm going to give away the whole book right here so no one EVER has to read it.  The main character has a god awful mother who mistreats him.  He develops a sexual addiction and traipses all over Europe finding a countess to marry.  The countess then cheats on the sex addict and has a baby boy with the gardener.  The sex addict beats the Boy.  The countess dies.  The Boy then spends his eternity attempting to kill said sex addict.

It really just disintegrates from there.

The writing is terrible.  Third person that sounds like "he did this and then she did that."

on page 281, "it was just a story about despair."

Um. Maybe you could have started out with that disclaimer and saved us all the trouble.

the one I want Kate to read.

I just finished Ms. Hempel Chronicles by Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum.  Love. Love. Love.

This book reminds me what it was like to be a middle school counselor and how absolutely raw and genuine those kids were.  I miss those exhausting, exhilarating days now and then.

My favorite line:
"this was a feeling that Ms. Hempel couldn't shake: a conviction that she spent her days among people at the age when they were most purely themselves.  How could she not be depleted when she came home, having been exposed for hours, without protection, to all of those thrumming, radiant selves?"

This is a lovely book.  And the voice of a middle school teacher is spot on.  Like being in the trenches again.  A must read.

the one that confused me.

I just finished the novel White Teeth by Zadie Smith.  I'm not sure I have the words or the energy to discuss the confusion I'm feeling about this book.  Discussions on immigration, militant Islam and a crazy Freudian family. 

Too many characters, too many pages. 

I've read other Zadie Smith and I like her wry wit.  I just didn't get this book. 

But I did finish it.  I can say that much. 

the ones I never thought I'd read

I know how this looks but bear with me . . . because life is good.

I just finished:
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

Brooke's book just made me angry at Tom Cruise and incredibly empathetic for her struggle (minus the baby nurse, luxury CLEAN condos and oodles of support).

Naked Mole Rat made Matt and I laugh out loud. We read it to Maren. She didn't get it. BUT hopefully someday she will rather read than scream. 

It Sucked and Then I Cried was SO crass and hilarious. Had I read this book two months ago, I would have disparaged it. Now I have a sailor's mouth worse than anyone I know, have lost all modesty about my body and have reached even lower expectations about the cleanliness of my house. Impossible! 

I'm not depressed but I can see how incredibly easy it would be to enter that state. If Little M hadn't taken to the swing this week, I might have completely lost my marbles.  I totally get it now, mothers and fathers of the world. And I will never, ever again look smugly at the screaming toddler in line at Target.


I no longer have to write a book about having an infant because it's already been covered here.  My favorite chapter of It Sucked was "Her Screamness Who Screams a Lot Every Day With the Screaming" followed by "I Never Thought I Would Become This Woman".

Ditto.  Nuf said.