GTKY: What Are You Reading?

kagesstarshroom · December 2019

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What have you been reading lately? Pregnancy/baby/parenting related or otherwise--let us know! If not books, names of blogs or articles are welcome!

kagesstarshroom · December 2019

Posted this one selfishly, lol, because I am reading a million books at once right now. In the spoiler is a stack of most of them. Sometimes I have like one primary book I'm reading and a bunch of others I'm sloughing my way through, and sometimes my attention is way spread out over a bunch of books and I'm less interested in finishing them as just picking up whatever one I feel like reading at the time--which is what is happening now.

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FICTION

Fieldwork by Mischa Berlinksi

PREGNANCY/PARENTING/BIRTH/ETC

Your Pregnancy and Birth, 4th Ed., by The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
Magical Beginnings, Enchanted Lives by Deepak Chopra et al. (this is my SIL's fave birth/pregnancy book, so she just sent it to me and I'm reading it. There are little prompts for exercises in it, which I can't tell if I am into or not. I'm not NOT into them, I guess I just... don't want to skip them but also don't want to do them when I've been reading the book? I'm also not sure where to put them--on separate pieces of paper that I can slide into my pregnancy journal book I have with pockets that also has prompts? In the personal journal I keep? In a whole different notebook?)
Like a Mother: A Feminist Journey through the Science and Culture of Pregnancy by Angela Garbes (recommend.)

FOR THE JOB MARKET/MY FIELD

Rethinking Creative Writing by Stephanie Vanderslice
The Professor is In by Karen Kelsky
What Our Speech Disrupts: Feminism and Creative Writing Studies by Katharine Haake

OTHER

We Are the Weather by Jonathan Franzen (nonfiction about climate change)

chichiphin · December 2019

So normally I plow through books on my ipad, but that gets expensive. I decided to re-read the entire HP series to save some. It has worked so far as I only feel the need to read one or two chapters a night! I'm on book 6 now and they're about to go to the cave by the sea!

The only pregnancy book I'm reading currently is my hypnobirthing book - the mongan method. so far so good & I really connect with what she has to say.

varimama · December 2019

@kagesstarshroom I’m impressed! Whenever I try to read multiple books 1 always dominates it for me.

I just finished The Fall of Gondolin by JRR Tolkien. It was edited and published by his son Christopher Tolkien. It wasn’t so much of a book as the many different versions Tolkien had written with this tale and I found it fascinating to see how his writing evolved. I would recommend it if you really enjoyed the Silmarillion and want more details on this specific story otherwise it probably won’t be interesting.

I just started The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins. I’m not very far so no opinions yet.

For baby related I have 2 sitting on my shelf waiting for me to find time:
1. Toilet Training without Tantrums
2. Adventures in Tandem Nursing 2nd edition (I read the first one back before TTC but she released a new edition and it was on sale for only $10 so I got it)

wednesdayschild · December 2019

I'm with @kagesstarshroom (and also recommend Like a Mother!) and read a bunch of books at once. Also a HUGE fan of the library. You get 21 days to read the more popular ones, so it definitely keeps me accountable. I keep track out of curiosity and to look back for reference and I'm at 182 for 2019 so far.

Currently reading:
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie - Alan Bradley (mystery starring a precocious 11 year old)
The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding - LLL (honestly do not appreciate so far -- I plan to BF, and it's still way too preachy)
HypnoBirthing - Marie Mongan (agree, @chichiphin! It's good!)
Fair Play - Eve Rodsky (actionable advice on breaking down emotional/unseen labor. Interesting!)
A Conspiracy in Belgravia - Sherry Thomas (another mystery, with female Sherlock. 2nd in the series - really enjoyed the first)
The Art of Gathering - Priya Parker (bought this one before Thanksgiving -- why and how to improve gatherings. Pretty fascinating thesis - definitely trying out some of the ideas over Christmas)
The Great Pretender - Susannah Cahalan (for book club! Read her last one, it was so good. Only three chapters in so far, but love it.)

EmilyLove25 · December 2019

@kagesstarshroom Just coming in to make sure I am not missing something. Johnathan Safran Foer wrote We Are the Weather, right? Can you imagine if Franzen (one of my all time favorite novelists despite being pretentious) wrote this? It would be SO condescending hahahaah!

EmilyLove25 · December 2019

Just finished:
-Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng (AMAZING)

About to Start:
-There There by Tommy Orange

Ongoing Parenting Book:
-Easy to Love, Difficult to Discipline

Need to Read:
-Something motivating about labor

wednesdayschild · December 2019

@EmilyLove25, have you read Hypnobirthing yet? If you’re interested in unmediated labor, it might be motivating for you!

chichiphin · December 2019

@EmilyLove25 I second @pdx2020 and I also feel that she is NOT preachy about - she basically says up front that these techniques are great for any type of labor you end up happening!

kagesstarshroom · December 2019

@EmilyLove25 LOL omg you're right--it's they're both Jonathan F. novelists, I get them mixed up in my head. I was literally looking at the book when I typed the author name, so #ProfessorFail but yeah omg way different tone if FranzenI really want to read that Celeste Ng book!

@chichiphin I love that you are rereading HP! I reread them 7 years after the last book dropped and decided I would read them every 7 years. It's coming up-- I have to figure out what exact year it is. I'm going to do this right now. Okay, so it was 2007, then I reread in 2014, so that means I'm up again in 2021--PERFECT. I shall read them out loud to a small bebe. Anyway, I shall check out hypnobirthing. I'm obsessed with finding the right birthing books to read, so I am about to read or start to read so many. I am hoping the library has some good ones.

@varimama Ooo-- that's pretty rad how his son didn't--assume he knew what the book should be and just left in all the versions? Also, be less impressed lol I am just scattered these days. I have been cracking up at this growing pile on my bedside table. And I just found a book in my office at school (Unfamiliar Fishes by Sarah Vowell--I really love her sort of 'pop history') and was like "I should read this over break!" SMH.

@pdx2020 So glad I'm not the only one with the towering bedside stack. =P

momoftoddlers · December 2019

@chichiphin Have you tried Kindle Unlimited? Or borrowing e-books from your local library? I also tear through e-books and it was getting too expensive, but those two things were life changing because now I have unlimited access!

I honestly can’t even tell you what titles I’ve been reading because I just bounce all over reading this and that. As a stay at home mom it’s one of my only ways to keep my mind sharp.

If you like mystery, I liked Melinda Leigh’s Morgan Dane series. If you like romance, I love Robyn Carr’s Virgin River series. It actually just became a Netflix series which I’m not really sure about. Is the movie ever as good as the book?

miss.sally · December 2019

Yayyyy fellow book lovers! I can definitely only read one book at a time though. However I tend to get super into them and read them in a week or less. Lol. I can’t wait to read five million of them while nursing!!

So amazon had a free book day a while back and I downloaded all of them to expand my book niche. They’re mostly historical fiction, which I love anyway. I haven’t loved all of them, but I also have a thing about *needing* to finish any book I start even if it isn’t love.

The last book I purchased was Last Year in Havana, which was an easy read but I loved it. I can’t wait to read the second book! Pretty much all of the books on the Reese Witherspoon book list is good. I also decided I want to re-read all of Jane Austen’s books. They’re my favorite. And also the reason I want to name this little boy Darcy 😁. H still isn’t convinced but I’m working on him.

varimama · December 2019

@miss.sally I love reading classics and Jane Austin is one of my favs! Bonus for classics is you can get the kindle edition free in most cases!

Ive decided to re-read Stephen King’s Dark Tower series as my goal for 2020. I know my reading will slow down with a newborn bc If it’s like DS I was too tired to read mostly and watched Netflix more. I went from reading 2 books a month to 1 book every 2 months lol. I finally got it back up to 2 books a month this year. Anyways I figure 7 long books will be a decent challenge and I haven’t read them since HS which was... a long time ago 🤣 I had some amazon gift cards and no rush rewards plus took advantage of the Black Friday deal spend $20 get $5 so I was able to buy all but the last book without spending any of my money!

kantobean · December 2019

Following because I need some good reads over winter break!!

I’m ashamed to say that I haven’t read a non-pregnancy, non-teaching book since summer. Even pregnancy and teaching books I’ve just read little bits here and there. I guess the last thing I read was A Handmaid’s Tale. I’m picky about fiction but I really liked that one.

@varimama I liked The Girl On the Train! I’ll be interested to see how you like it. Lots of twists!

momoftoddlers · December 2019

@kantobean If you liked Handmaid’s Tale, the sequel was good. It answered a lot of questions, especially if you also watched the Hulu series.

kagesstarshroom · December 2019

@kantobean @momoftoddlers I really want to read/watch A Handmaid's Tale (& then read the sequel) BUT I feel like it would make me too angry, considering the political climate we live in, so I haven't. But I think reading it would be better than watching it for me.

wednesdayschild · December 2019

@kantobean @momoftoddlers @kagesstarshroom I saw Margaret Atwood speak this year and she was ~amazing~. However, definitely struggled rereading The Handmaid's Tale and I'm holding off on The Testaments until at least next year. Less about the political climate -- just hit a little too close to home being pregnant!

Also, just because, here's my favorite Atwood poem.

kantobean · December 2019

@momoftoddlers I will check out the sequel! Thank you!

@kagesstarshroom I cant bring myself to watch the series. I’m fine reading intense books, but when I watch TV, I just want to laugh.

@pdx2020 good point. I wasn’t pregnant yet (or didn’t realize it yet) when I started reading Handmaid’s Tale this summer. By the time I finished it I knew I was KU and that definitely was kind of weird! It also just hit close to home as a mom of a daughter close in age to the one in the book.

kagesstarshroom · December 2019

@pdx2020 The link didn't work for the poem, wahh! Can you give me the name of it so I can look it up? As you may know, I am a poet.

wednesdayschild · December 2019

@kagesstarshroom, I can type the whole thing!

[you fit into me]

you fit into me
like a hook into an eye

a fish hook

an open eye

- Margaret Atwood (from Power Politics, ‘71)

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