Tag Archives: Non-Fiction General

Parenting, Inc by Pamela Paul

Synopsis: An overview of the craze for consumption that has overtaken American parents. Review: I would’ve read Parenting, Inc even if I didn’t have a baby, because I find spenders (and hoarders, too) to be endlessly fascinating. I’ve also been interested in child development since I was in high school, and of course as a new mother I was really curious to see what Pamela Paul discovered about the baby industry. Surprise, surprise–people will say anything to make money! And parents are more than willing…

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Healthy Child, Healthy World by Christopher Gavigan

Synopsis: A practical how-to guide for greening your home. Review: I could have done without the celebrity endorsements in Healthy Child, Healthy World. I really don’t care what kind of diapers Brooke Shields uses or that Noah Wyle’s kids are vegetarians. I guess these are good selling points, but to me these sidebars were just a lot of clutter. I did like the suggestions and recipes for green cleaning, which is something I’ve been working towards for some time, not just for the health of…

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Charanavi by Masahiro Tsuromoto

Synopsis: How your birthday tells you who you are. Review: Charanavi is a Japanese book in translation and offers a fortune-telling system that relates your birthday to a type of animal. Based on my birthday, 11/4/1973, I am a “potential tanuki.” A tanuki is a sort of raccoon indigenous to Japan. Being a potential tanuki means that I am “genial and rather passive in nature, with a warm and gentle personality that is loved by everyone.” Um, anyone who knows me in real life is…

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The Starter Marriage by Pamela Paul

Synopsis: An overview of the recent phenomenon of marriages that end before they reach the five-year mark. Review: I hate books that never tell you more than what you read in the title. I generally enjoy books like this, as I’m keenly interested in human behavior and social trends, but this book really didn’t do it for me. I never felt like Paul’s interviewees came alive, and as a result I wasn’t sucked into the drama of their lives. I gave up on it 2/3…

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Pushed: The Painful Truth about Childbirth and Modern Maternity Care by Jennifer Block

Synopsis: A muck-raking expose of what happens in labor and delivery wards across America. Review: Pushed upset me–so much so, that I considered not finishing the book. I have an innate mistrust of doctors and hospitals after some rough treatment I received during a miscarriage last year. where I was not informed of all my options and wound up in the ER with an infection. My quest to find a new care provider ultimately led me to choose home birth with a midwife for my…

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3 New Parenting Books

Touchpoints: Birth to 3 : Your Child’s Emotional and Behavioral Development by T. Berry Brazelton A good resource for understanding infant and baby behavior and milestones. It’s a bit mainstream for my taste, in that Brazelton never wants you to forget that he is a pediatrician and he knows your baby best. I much prefer the Sears Baby Book, with its emphasis on developing a cue-based bond with your baby. For that reason, I took some issue with his recommendation to put a baby on…

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Non Fiction Meme

I’m late getting to Gautami’s Non Fiction Meme. * a) What issues/topic interests you most in non-fiction, i.e, cooking, knitting, stitching, there are infinite topics that have nothing to do with novels? Books about food, books that explain scientific topics for general readers, biography, memoir, history, travelogues. I love reading books about my hobbies, particularly knitting and cooking. My library is filled with books of film history, criticism, and theory. I like some books on Christianity by authors like CS Lewis and Dan Allender. Lately…

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The Daring Book For Girls

Synopsis: A compendium of activities and fun facts for girls. Review: Jumprope rhymes, hand-clapping games, the rules of 4-square, and facts about famous female explorers are just a selection from the wonderfully random assortment of Things Girls Should Know. The Daring Book For Girls is a fun piece of nostalgia that I want to share with all the moms of girls I know. Reading through the book makes me sad that Superfast Baby has inherited a world so unlike the one I grew up in,…

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Aspects of the Novel by EM Forster

Synopsis: A collection of lectures given by EM Forster at Trinity College in Cambridge in 1927, touching on all aspects of the novel from story and people to what Forster calls “fantasy” and “prophecy.” Review: A delicious gem of a book. Forster’s prose is gorgeous, and I want to read every book he mentions that I haven’t already. I will be ruminating on what I’ve read in here for quite some time, and this is a book I will revisit many times. Rather than try…

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