The best pregnancy books for first time moms

I’ve plowed through dozens of books about pregnancy and childbirth.  Most were informative, many were interesting, some were opinionated, some were decidedly NOT opinionated.  When push comes to shove, though, you’ve got to have your go-to books, those you value above all the rest and turn to whenever you have a question.  These are mine.

Great Expectations: Your All-in-One Resource for Pregnancy & Childbirth by Sandy Jones and Marcie Jones.

This is the best of the best, for this reason: it breaks down your pregnancy week by week.  Each of these sections includes the following topics:

• the baby’s size
• the baby’s development
• what’s happening to you physically
• your emotions
• what you can do this week

I get an e-mail every week from BabyCenter with week by week info, but sometimes it’s nice to have it on the nightstand or in the car with me.  This book is factual and has opinions “where it counts” (i.e. breastfeeding and exercise), but doesn’t go over the top telling you what to do our what not to do.  It explains risks and benefits instead.

What to Expect When You’re Expecting – 4th Edition by Heidi Murkof and Sharon Mazel

I’ve used both the third and fourth editions of What to Expect, and I would highly recommend the fourth edition.  While it doesn’t have quite the same weekly detail as Great Expectations, this edition does give a weekly breakdown of your baby’s development.  In my opinion, the best part about this book is the monthly (and extremely timely) question and answers.  The index is also fantastic, so if you do have a question that the book hasn’t addressed in your current month, you can easily look it up.

My Latest Reads…

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The series is definitely veering toward the complex! I’ve gone ahead and read the next book before I reviewed this one, though, so now my thoughts of the two are muddled together. Still loving the series!

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I listened to this in audiobook form, and had a hard time taking out the earbuds! While it wasn’t quite as intriguing as the first book, The Hunger Games, I was very impressed. I enjoyed that the series started in a tight knit circle around Katniss, and by the end of Mockingjay all of Panem was in the mix. And, without giving away any spoilers, I was VERY happy with Katniss’s romantic decision at the end of the series!

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book left me hanging, which I detest. I was not particularly happy with the end – though I realize it’s part of a series, there was no closure. That being said… I can’t wait to dive into the next one! I’ve read the series before, yet somehow managed to forget nearly every detail of every book. Very handy, as I’ve been enjoying my re-reads in thorough suspense.

The Silent Governess by Julie Klassen

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was NOT what I expected (in a good way!). I enjoy Christian fiction, but often find it overbearing or pushy. The Silent Governess, on the other hand, had spirituality/religion as an underlying tone with brief references. I was very impressed that it was able to convey it’s message without using pages and pages to talk about God’s Word.

That being said… the story was also very well done. I’m a sucker for historical romances, so this was right up my alley.

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His Needs Her Needs Review

His Needs, Her Needs: Building an Affair-Proof Marriage by Willard F. Harley Jr.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book was very hands-on and interactive, which I appreciated. It includes quite a few worksheets, quizzes, and personal questions. The only problem I had with this book was the “blame the victim” philosophy, though I understand how it’s helpful in preventing affairs.

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Redeeming Love – Book Review

Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This story was one of my “guilty pleasure” books. I feel like Christian historical fiction isn’t as literary or high-brow as many other books I could choose; however I am always left with such a positive feeling after finishing a book that I’ll let myself get lost in it every so often!

This particular book was beautifully written. Michael’s character was unrealistic – too good to be true – but on a whole I felt that the plot, characters, and writing were inspiring.

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The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo – book review

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

If you can get past the really slow start, the book picks up steam. I nearly abandoned it altogether, but I decided to give it 50 pages before I’d let it go. Somewhere between pages 30 and 40, I got hooked.

It didn’t take me very long to finish – I couldn’t put it down. Its intricate plot was fascinating. That being said, I can’t say that I loved the book, or that I’d be eager to read any other books in the series. While the characters were likable, they had major, major flaws – enough to detract from the book as a whole.

Overall, I’m glad I read it, if only to see what the buzz has been about.

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Ten Lessons to Transform Your Marriage – Book Review

Ten Lessons to Transform Your Marriage: America’s Love Lab Experts Share Their Strategies for Strengthening Your Relationship by John Gottman

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

When I first looked at the chapter titles, I was turned off.  With chapters like “We don’t feel close anymore,” “You never talk to me” and “You don’t care about my dreams,” I was skeptical – we have a happy and loving relationship, and those problems just don’t apply to us. I had heard so much hype about the book, though, that I gave it a chance anyway – and I am so glad I did. It’s easily the best marriage book I’ve read since Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus. The chapters are pertinent to many situations, not just the title problems. My favorite part? The activities to do (alone or with your spouse) that get at the heart of couple issues. One of the main threads I saw in the book was that couples should try to discuss feelings underlying problems as opposed to simply finding an immediate solution, and the activities seemed to facilitate that.

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Fireproof – Book Review

Fireproof by Eric Wilson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was a beautiful, inspiring story that was much more true-to-life than most other books I’ve read that are classified as “realistic fiction.” I’m looking forward to watching the movie, as this was a novelization of the screenplay.

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Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban – Book Review

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The best Harry Potter book in the series to this point! Rowling’s writing in this book is far better than her previous two. My issues with her “remember when…”-ing in the second book (HP and the Chamber of Secrets) was dealt with. While the characters did reminisce at times, they did it in a way that was not distracting to the current plot. Two thumbs up, five stars, hooray!

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Sounder – Book Review

Sounder by William H. Armstrong

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As a teacher, my first thoughts when reading (or in this case, listening to) a book are for children. I really, really enjoyed this book as an adult, though I wouldn’t recommend it for elementary school children unless an older grade was reading it together.

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Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets – Book Review

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Fantastic! This was my second or third time reading the book, and I’m certainly not tired of it yet. It still amazes me how many hints and foreshadowing comments the book gives that wasn’t as meaningful to me last time around. My only complaint about this book is the frequency and manner in which past events are restated. “Harry thought back to his first year, when Hagrid…” or “During their first year at Hogwarts…” I do realize this need to be done somehow to bring new readers up to speed or to remind any reader, but when these types of sentences were still being stated 3/4 of the way through the book, it seemed a little overdone.

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Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone – Book Review

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I’ve read this book at least four times now, and I’m still surprised by all of the intricate twists and turns the book takes – especially when considering that this is the first book of a seven part series. I can only imagine the planning that must have gone into it. Rowling alludes to things in the first book that don’t make sense or aren’t fully explained until multiple books into the series. Aside from re-reading the other six books this year, I’d also like to find a J.K. Rowling biography. Any recommendations?

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She’s Come Undone – Book Review

She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I didn’t know what I was in for when I started She’s Come Undone, other than it was an Oprah’s book club pick and on sale for 50 cents at a used book store. At times, you wanted to slap the main character, Delores, in the face, and at other times you wanted to cry for all the pain she was in. It certainly made me consider how I view people with mental problems and how they are just that – people who have had a rougher time than most, or who deal with their problems in unhealthy ways.

This book left me with a melancholy feeling the entire time I was reading it, which I wasn’t a fan of, but I was more than content with the ending, so I can’t complain too much!

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Project Everlasting – Book Review

Project Everlasting: Two Bachelors Discover the Secrets of Americas Greatest Marriages by Mathew Boggs and Jason Miller

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a really sweet, When Harry Met Sally-esque book. The short stories were quick and easy to read, and left you with a warm fuzzy feeling and a desire to go and hug your grandparents. I don’t know if I really learned any secrets to marriage, but it was worth the read nonetheless.

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The Notebook – Book Review

The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks

My rating: 1 of 5 stars

I consider myself to be fairly romantic. I enjoy a good chick flick, and a sweet love story will make me cry. This book, however, was sickeningly sweet. Not only did the Noah not have a flaw (handsome, loner, woodsy, poet, devoted, independently wealthy… need I go on?), but he waited for a decade for the love of his life to make her way back to him. This book is unrealistic to the point of absurdity. Books like this upset me because the belittle the everyday romances that are in the world. They may not be lovemaking four times per day by a fireplace, or canoeing to a secluded bird-filled lagoon, but they’re beautiful nonetheless. The only redeeming characteristic of this book was the interaction between the elderly couple as Allie battles Alzheimer’s disease.

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Books I’ve Read but Haven’t Written Reviews For (Yet)

One of my goals is to record all books I read.  I’m a bit behind.  Once in a while I manage to review them on this blog (like here and here), but usually I forget and move onto the next book before I remember to post about them.  Hopefully I’ll find time to review all of these, but just in case, I’ll make a list of recent reads.

• The Mighty Queens of Freeville: A Mother, a Daughter, and the Town that Raised Them by Amy Dickinson
• The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks
• 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think by Laura Vanderkam
• Nim’s Island by Wendy Knorr
• Essential Manners for Couples : from Snoring and Sex to Finances and Fighting Fair–What Works, What Doesn’t, and Why by Peter Post
• Project Everlasting : Two Bachelors Discover the Secrets of America’s Greatest Marriages by Mathew Boggs and Jason Miller
• The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

 

The Cheapskate Next Door – Book Review

Title: The Cheapskate Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of Americans Living Happily Below Their Means

Author: Jeff Yeager

Genre: Nonfiction, financial, self help

Published: Crown Publishing, 2010

Recommended by: The Today Show

Review: Booklist. Starred review.  Ah, yes, belt-tightening is the procedure of the day, from how giant businesses conduct themselves to managing one’s own personal finances. It is the latter aspect of conservative spending that the author of the popular Ultimate Cheapskate’s Road Map to True Riches (2007) and of the blog Green Cheapskate addresses in this delightful—yes, delightful—guide for me, you, and everyone else. Personal finance is a universal concern, particularly in these tight economic times. It is a topic that people need to know about but still shy away from. Yeager is here to draw you in and does so easily. He does not use the term “cheapskate” in a pejorative fashion; after all, he lists himself as one and wishes that all his readers would aspire to cheapskateness. A cheapskate to him is someone who lives below his or her means and does so happily. How to spend less than you are spending now is the program he details; the amazing fact about this book is that in addition to his instructions making perfect sense, like no other book of its kind, this one
can be read simply for the humor of the author’s prose.

Notes: This was an excellent financial guide that I related to in nearly every chapter.  The book included tips and tricks that I’d not thought of, and gave a bolster of support to our already “cheapskate” tendencies.  We’re the most frugal of our group of friends, so it was a relief to know we’re not the only ones out there pinching our pennies and enjoying it in the meantime!

Rating (out of four stars): four stars

Date Finished: 8/30/10

The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes – Book Review

Title: The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes

Author: Diane Chamberlain

Genre: Suspense, Romance, Realistic Fiction

Publisher: Mira, 2006

Recommended by: Erin at Blue-Eyed Bride

Synopsis: (from the publisher) In 1977, pregnant Genevieve Russell disappeared. Twenty years later, her remains are discovered and Timothy Gleason is charged with murder. But there is no sign of the unborn child.  CeeCee Wilkes knows how Genevieve Russell died, because she was there. And she knows what happened to her missing infant, because two decades ago she made the devastating choice to raise the baby as her own. Now Timothy Gleason is facing the death penalty, and she has another choice to make. Tell the truth and destroy her family. Or let an innocent man die in order to protect a lifetime of lies.

Notes: Again, couldn’t put it down.  I actually had to ask Paul to hide it from me so I could get some work done!  I’m not used to reading suspenseful books – around the middle of the book, I had to read the last three chapters so I could fall asleep.  While I enjoyed reading it at the time, though, I don’t think it’ll be a lasting favorite.  It was very plot-driven – not necessarily a bad thing, but not my favorite type of book.

Rating (out of four stars): three stars

Date Finished: 8/18/10

The Diary of Mattie Spenser – Book Review

Title: The Diary of Mattie Spenser

Author: Sandra Dallas

Genre: Historical Fiction, Pioneer

Year Published: Griffin, 1998

Recommended by: Aunt Joey

Review: Kirkus Reviews. The buoyancy and simple, uncloying sweetness of spirit of Dallas’s appealing protagonist–the young wife of a homesteader in Colorado Territory–give a bright, fresh shading to the tragedies and small sharp joys of 19th-century frontier life. Again, as in The Persian Pickle Club (1995), Dallas has caught the lilt and drift of regional speech. At 22, plain Mattie is astounded that handsome Luke Spenser desires to marry her–he has been keeping company with pretty Persia. Nonetheless, he chooses her, and they head out from Iowa in May 1865 to the homestead Luke has already planted in Colorado Territory. There are pleasures along the way: nice folks, and quiet days spent with Luke, her “Darling Boy.” But Luke, who doesn’t smile at her jokes, works very hard and doesn’t like her to flirt with him. As for the marital act: “I still think it’s overrated.” Danger comes soon enough, and it’s Mattie’s quick shooting that saves two lives, although she doesn’t seriously contradict Luke’s dismissive observation that it was a “lucky shot.” Once they arrive in Colorado, though, Mattie is disappointed by the homestead (out on the plains, she finds, there is “too much sky”). Her education in the real travails of people, particularly women, separated from the cushioning platitudes and quick-step judgments of home, begins immediately. A despised “slattern” proves herself a true friend; Mattie witnesses women weakened by too many births, another abused and horribly killed, and murder and torture by both whites and Indians. She also experiences wild joy and then tragedy, suffers many dangers, and is rocked by Luke’s sudden betrayal. (“How could he ever again be my Darling Boy?”) Yet torment yields to endurance and a kind of compassion. Tragedies and sad little domestic dramas are muffled within the decency and humanity of a character whose understanding–but not essence–changes with events. A modest, appealing novel with a convincing reach into Colorado’s plains and skies.

Notes: I could not put this book down!  A quick, fun read.  It would be worth reading more by this author.

Rating (out of four stars): four stars

Date Finished: 7/15/10

The Help – Book Review

Title: The Help

Author: Kathryn Stockett

Genre: Historical Fiction

Year Published: Putnam, 2009

Recommended by: Aunt Joey

Review: The Washington Post. Southern whites’ guilt for not expressing gratitude to the black maids who raised them threatens to become a familiar refrain. But don’t tell Kathryn Stockett because her first novel is a nuanced variation on the theme that strikes every note with authenticity. In a page-turner that brings new resonance to the moral issues involved, she spins a story of social awakening as seen from both sides of the American racial divide.

Newly graduated from Ole Miss with a degree in English but neither an engagement ring nor a steady boyfriend, Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan returns to her parents’ cotton farm in Jackson. Although it’s 1962, during the early years of the civil rights movement, she is largely unaware of the tensions gathering around her town.

Skeeter is in some ways an outsider. Her friends, bridge partners and fellow members of the Junior League are married. Most subscribe to the racist attitudes of the era, mistreating and despising the black maids whom they count on to raise their children. Skeeter is not racist, but she is naive and unwittingly patronizing. When her best friend makes a political issue of not allowing the “help” to use the toilets in their employers’ houses, she decides to write a book in which the community’s maids — their names disguised — talk about their experiences.

Fear of discovery and retribution at first keep the maids from complying, but a stalwart woman named Aibileen, who has raised and nurtured 17 white children, and her friend Minny, who keeps losing jobs because she talks back when insulted and abused, sign on with Skeeter’s risky project, and eventually 10 others follow.

Aibileen and Minny share the narration with Skeeter, and one of Stockett’s accomplishments is reproducing African American vernacular and racy humor without resorting to stilted dialogue. She unsparingly delineates the conditions of black servitude a century after the Civil War.

The murders of Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King Jr. are seen through African American eyes, but go largely unobserved by the white community. Meanwhile, a room “full of cake-eating, Tab-drinking, cigarette-smoking women” pretentiously plan a fundraiser for the “Poor Starving Children of Africa.” In general, Stockett doesn’t sledgehammer her ironies, though she skirts caricature with a “white trash” woman who has married into an old Jackson family. Yet even this character is portrayed with the compassion and humor that keep the novel levitating above its serious theme.

Notes: An engaging book – I read it while on our cruise.  I loved the storyline, but didn’t feel like I had to be reading it every moment of our trip.  One of the best books I’ve read in a long time.

Rating (out of four stars): four stars

Date Finished: 7/30/10

How Did You Get This Number (Book Review)

Title: How Did You Get This Number

Author: Sloane Crosley

Genre: Nonfiction, Memoir, Personal Essays, Humor

Year Published: Riverhead Hardcover, 2010

Recommended by: n/a

Review: Booklist.  *Starred Review* In her first collection of essays, I Was Told There’d Be Cake (2008), Crosley revealed herself as the kind of writer with whom readers could be friends. You could exchange travel stories or compare descriptions of the odor of a NYC taxicab, and you could probably make her laugh, too. In Crosley’s new book, she maintains her humor but inflects it with a sense of melancholy. In the manner of David Sedaris and Sarah Vowell, Crosley tells us about European vacation disasters, the inexhaustible nuances of life in New York, and playing the role of bridesmaid . . . in Alaska. Here even more personal and reflective than in her prior writing, Crosley saves the best for last with the beautifully layered ‘Off the Back of a Truck,’ which also contains the inspiration for the book’s title. In this story about learning the range of what we can and can’t afford, she explains that some things are worth foregoing morality to get (hint: they are rugs and ottomans, not boyfriends). Her ability to be at once so familiar and still surprise us is really showcased here. Smart, clever, and frank, Crosley’s stories are as intimate, and embarrassingly eccentric, as the thoughts we keep to ourselves.

Notes: Crosley’s first book, I Was Told There’d Be Cake, was funnier on a whole.  I didn’t laugh out loud at this book, but the last three stories were really enjoyable.

Rating (out of four stars): three stars

Date Finished: 7/9/10

Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology (Book Review)

Title: Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology

Author: Eric Brende

Genre: Nonfiction, Memoir

Year Published: HarperCollins, 2004

Recommended by: n/a

Review: Publisher’s Weekly. About a decade ago, Brende was pursuing a graduate degree at MIT by studying technology’s influence on society, and he reached conclusions that disturbed both him and his faculty mentors. A chance encounter with a “black-hatted man” prompted Brende and his new wife to move to a religious, “Mennonite-type” community that in many respects makes the Amish seem worldly, where he hoped to pare his environment down to “a baseline of minimal machinery” that could sustain human comfort while allowing him to stay off the power grid. (Details about the community, which Brende dubs the “Minimites” in recognition of their austerity, are left intentionally vague so as to preserve their privacy.) The pervasive back-to-basics sentiment will surprise few familiar with others who work this vein, like Bill McKibben and Kirkpatrick Sale, but Brende’s nostalgia for a simpler way of life is far from rabid. His rough prose honestly addresses how neighbors in his new community could graciously offer help yet warily view Brende as an intruder; Brende himself was particularly sensitive to perceived slights, and the radical lifestyle shift created a unique set of strains on his new marriage. Though the ending feels a bit rushed, his gentle case for simple living will easily resonate with the converted and may inspire skeptics to grapple more intimately with the issue.

Notes: This book really resonated with me.  Brende’s year with the “Minimites” is both encouraging and inspiring.

Rating (out of four stars): three stars

Date Finished: 6/26/10

The Time Traveler’s Wife (Book Review)

Title: The Time Traveler’s Wife

Author: Audrey Niffenegger

Genre: Fiction, Romance, Science Fiction (very loosely)

Year Published: Harcourt, 2004

Recommended by: sister-in-law

Review: The New Yorker. Young lovers often believe themselves crossed by fate or by time, but those in Niffenegger’s spirited first novel have more reason than most. Henry suffers from Chrono-Impairment—a quasi-medical condition that catapults him, unwillingly, from one random point in time to another. Clare first meets him in 1977, when she is six and he materializes near her parents’ garden as a thirty-six-year-old from 2000; he returns regularly throughout her childhood from different times in their shared future. At last, when Clare is twenty and Henry twenty-eight, they meet in his present, and the relationship begins in earnest. But romance proves even trickier than usual when one person keeps vanishing to distant, and occasionally dangerous, times. Niffenegger plays ingeniously in her temporal hall of mirrors, but fails to make the connection between the lovers as compelling as their odd predicament.

Notes: This book played with my emotions – by the end of it I was a mess.  It was really an excellent read – I enjoyed my time with this book.  I’d recommend it to any woman.  I’m looking forward to watching the movie.

Rating (out of four stars): three stars

Date Finished: 7/2/10

Await Your Reply (Book Review)

Title: Await Your Reply

Author: Dan Chaon

Genre: Fiction, Suspense

Year Published: Ballantine Books, 2009

Recommended by: IndieBound

Review: Publisher’s Weekly. Starred Review. Three disparate characters and their oddly interlocking lives propel this intricate novel about lost souls and hidden identities from National Book Award–finalist Chaon (You Remind Me of Me). Eighteen-year-old Lucy Lattimore, her parents dead, flees her stifling hometown with charismatic high school teacher George Orson, soon to find herself enmeshed in a dangerous embezzling scheme. Meanwhile, Miles Chesire is searching for his unstable twin brother, Hayden, a man with many personas who’s been missing for 10 years and is possibly responsible for the house fire that killed their mother. Ryan Schuyler is running identity-theft scams for his birth father, Jay Kozelek, after dropping out of college to reconnect with him, dazed and confused after learning he was raised thinking his father was his uncle. Chaon deftly intertwines a trio of story lines, showcasing his characters’ individuality by threading subtle connections between and among them with effortless finesse, all the while invoking the complexities of what’s real and what’s fake with mesmerizing brilliance. This novel’s structure echoes that of his well-received debut—also a book of threes—even as it bests that book’s elegant prose, haunting plot and knockout literary excellence.

Notes: I couldn’t put this book down, and I think it’ll stick with me; however, I was highly unsatisfied with the ending – almost all storylines had loose ends.  The book raised interesting questions of any given person’s identity.

Rating (out of four stars): two stars

Date Finished: 5/12/10