Book Reviews

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton

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16-year-old Laurel is sitting in her treehouse, pouting, while the rest of her family enjoys the baby’s birthday party. She’s just about decided to join the family party when she sees her mother greet a visitor (a man Laurel has never seen before) by plunging a knife into his chest.

In the very next chapter, Laurel is a grown woman and her mother Dorothy is celebrating her 90th birthday, her last birthday. Laurel goes through a family photo album, telling her hospitalized and unresponsive mother the familiar story of her own life, starting just before she’d met their father. As Laurel nears the end of the album, an old photo falls out, one Laurel has never seen before. It’s their mother and another woman, victory rolls in their hair. Laurel asks her sister about the picture and her sister explains how she’d found the photo in a book belonging to their mother: a copy of Peter Pan, the play. The book was inscribed “For Dorothy. A true friend is a light in the dark. Vivien.”

It’s funny, Laurel thought, she’d never considered her mother’s life before the album began – her life before she’d met and married their father. But this photo, and the inscription in the book, touched something deep inside of Laurel. She began looking into the story of her mother’s past.

From there, The Secret Keeper follows the lives of three women: Laurel, her mother Dorothy, and Dorothy’s friend Vivian. The narrative jumps back and forth from woman to woman and from 1940’s England to modern day (2011) England. And it’s absolutely fascinating.

This was the September pick for my in-real-life bookclub, and I knew from the other readers that there would be a twist at the end. Despite this, I spent the majority of the book with no clue as to even what I might be trying to solve. Was I trying to solve the mystery of the man’s death? Of Vivien and Dorothy’s relationship? Of… well, I didn’t know. It was disconcerting, reading a book that kept me guessing all the way to the end – guessing not only about the solution to the mystery but about what the mystery was exactly.

It drew me in like few books have lately. It wasn’t simply an escape – it kept me thinking too much. Yet it wasn’t dense and literary (in such a way that I felt exhausted afterward from the hard work of interpretation.) It was an engaging story, a thought-provoking read, a mental and emotional workout that I only recognized by the runner’s high, not by any perspiration in the process. (For the record, I have never experienced a runner’s high from running, nor have I ever run without noticing myself perspiring. Actually, I’ve pretty much never run. So maybe my metaphor should have been something more like an enjoyable night of dancing that I only recognized as a workout from the pleasantly sore muscles in the morning – but it’s not what I came up with first, and I don’t have the energy just now to figure out how to transform that one to fit the sentence. Yep, I’m that lazy.)

It took me a few chapters to get into this novel, but once I was in, I was in all the way. I enjoyed every twist and turn. And the twist at the end? It’s more like two dozen twists, absolutely paradigm-shifting twists. Twists that make me want to sit right back down and read the book over again to see how the author crafted the story so exquisitely that everything fits in this completely altered worldview.

Yeah. It was GOOD.

You should read it.

Rating: 5 stars
Category: General Fiction
Synopsis: A woman seeks to learn about her mother’s life before marriage and family – and finds out more than she could have ever imagined.
Recommendation: An excellent book. Highly recommended.

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: How to Survive Your Baby’s First Year by Hundreds of Heads

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Once upon a time, when I was young and before I had children, I read a book in which parents shared their best parenting tips. I thought it was fascinating – seeing all the different parenting styles, all the little tips and tricks for staying sane and organized, for getting past diapering or potty-training troubles, for dealing with picky eaters and supermarket tantrums.

So I figured I’d probably like the Hundreds of Heads Survival Guide: How to Survive Your Baby’s First Year “by hundreds of happy moms and dads who did”.

I was wrong.

Perhaps the types of tips and quality of advice has changed in the years between the two books’ publications (this one was published in 2005). Or perhaps I’ve become more dogmatic about my own parenting philosophies. Perhaps it’s both. But the advice in this book generally struck me as same-old-same-old millenial parenting advice that, in my opinion, hasn’t worked out so well. Okay, maybe the parents survived the first year, but the kids grown up on this sort of advice have issues.

Perhaps I remember wrongly, but it seems the book I remember reading was filled with tips – different ideas for organizing the changing table or for repurposing those wipes containers or for household items that make great toys for an infant or whatever.

The advice in this book is more like: “Breastfeeding is the best thing you’ll ever experience”, “Don’t breastfeed, it sucks”. “Spanking is the absolute worst thing you can do to your child”; “A pop on the butt is all it takes”. Or it’ll be mom ratting dad out for how he doesn’t know that a child should only be left in time out for as many minutes as he is years old (a 3-year-old for 3 minutes). Oh, really? Since when did that become an unbreakable rule? (Note: if a mom said, “I generally give my kids a timeout corresponding to their age – I find it suits their attention spans and gives them enough time to calm down without making them get impatient”, I’d be “Oh, neat tip.”)

Of course, all this dogmatic side-taking doesn’t stop the steady stream of “do what works for you” language. Which reminds me of a recent PJTV Parenting Round Table in which the contributers were asked “What’s the Best (and Worst) Parenting Advice You’ve Ever Received?”

Leslie Loftis gave the best answer (in my opinion):

“The Best advice came from my college mentor and mother of two: Aim for the kind of person you want them to be at 35, not what you want for them tomorrow.

The worst advice was also the most common advice: Just do what works for you and your family. In practice, it is the reverse of the best advice. It encourages short term thinking. What is right is what works right now. Sometimes necessity must have her way, but usually doing what works right now means avoiding little problems and letting them fester until they become big problems that are much harder to solve.”

And that, in short, is why I didn’t like How to Survive Your Baby’s First Year. It’s full of dogmaticism about pretty much anything (most of which are non-essentials) – combined with a total lack of long-range thinking.

Rating: 1 star
Category: Parenting – Baby Care
Synopsis: Parents give dogmatic advice on the major first year parenting questions – while constantly proclaiming “do what works for you”.
Recommendation: I don’t recommend it.

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: Thank You, Dr. Lamaze by Marjorie Karmel

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Marjorie Karmel had no intention of reading Grantley Dick-Reed’s Childbirth without Fear, which a friend had pressed into her hands at a dinner party. Marjorie wasn’t afraid of childbirth. She’d be out, after all.

But when she was desperately seasick on her trip back from New York to France, she picked up the book and started reading, fascinated. The book brought up all sorts of repressed memories (a terrible story of her mom’s delivery of her, a friend who’d told her about her own not-so-pleasant delivery, all previously forgotten) but also gave her hope for another way.

She asked around in Paris, searching for a doctor who’d be willing to let her try a natural childbirth – and found Dr. Lamaze.

Dr. Lamaze practiced a form of “Pavlovian childbirth”, based on Ivan Pavlov’s conditioned reflexes. Apparently, this form of childbirth was popular in the Soviet Union – but Lamaze advanced the technique, adding certain breathing methods and whatnot.

In Thank You, Dr. Lamaze, Marjorie Karmel writes of the wonderful experience she had giving birth to her first child in a Parisian hospital with a monitrice (doula) who’d taught her the Lamaze techniques and Dr. Lamaze attending – and she tells of using that same technique to give birth naturally in a New York hospital with much less natural-childbirth-friendly practices (and practitioners.)

I raced through this memoir, finding it absolutely fascinating.

Why? What was so interesting?

Well, the first is obvious. I love the process of birthing, love learning about the process of birthing. I wanted to be a midwife when I was a kid. I’d still love to be a midwife. It’s amazing.

But beyond that, it was interesting because it was a story of birthing practices at a certain point in time – and was a story that sparked significant changes in how birthing is done in America. It is through Karmel’s “ASPO” (American Society for Psychoprophylaxis in Obstetrics), now called “Lamaze International”, that things like having your husband present during labor and delivery became mainstream in America. Yet some of the aspects of how Karmel gave birth have been rejected by modern natural childbirth organizations, including Lamaze International.

Another interesting aspect was hearing about Karmel’s experience trying out a “natural childbirth course” at an American hospital. The class was led by a facilitator rather than a teacher – and the facilitator kept pointing out how every woman is different (and therefore there aren’t any general principles for women to learn to help them understand the process) and how medications will always be available if needed. The bulk of the class ended up being women talking about their past experiences or expected experiences – with very little learning about the actual process of birth or of ways to deal with it. I thought Karmel’s description was fascinating, because I feel like I’ve heard about that same class – except taught in these days :-)

It’s a short book, an easy read, and interesting to people like me. :-)

Rating:4 stars
Category: Birth Memoir
Synopsis: Karmel shares her story of giving birth naturally in a Paris hospital with Dr. Lamaze’s techniques – and of applying the same techniques in a New York hospital with less aware attendants.
Recommendation: Definitely worth reading for those who enjoy this sort of thing

Categories B3RD, Book Reviews

Book Review: The Baby Food Bible by Eileen Behan

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Face it, feeding a baby is hard work. Whether at the breast, from a bottle, or at the table, infant feeding takes time, energy, and savvy. (And don’t even get me started on the cleanup!)

For the health savvy mom, feeding a baby can be even harder – there’s so much conflicting information, so much advice, so many different ways to go. Start at four months or six? Rice cereal or avocado as a first food? Wait 3-5 days between foods or introduce mixtures at will? Cut grapes into quarters or sixteenths? Jarred or homemade baby foods? Or maybe baby-led weaning is the way to go? Should I choose organic foods or are conventionally grown foods okay? Should my baby eat salt? Sugar? Dairy foods? Soy foods? Wheat? Peanuts? The list of potential questions goes on and on.

I wish there were a good quality book that addressed all these issues (and addressed them the way I do – because, of course, I know it all :-P), but unfortunately, to my knowledge, no such book exists.

Eileen Behan’s The Baby Food Bible does a pretty good job though as a basic resource for moms. Behan, a dietitian who works with families, does a decent job summarizing general infant feeding recommendations as of 2008 when The Baby Food Bible was published.

The largest section of the book is a list of healthy food items (from all the food groups), discussing how moms can make them into purees for their infants and how they can incorporate those foods into family meals. She gives easy “recipes” for the purees, including how much water to use per unit of food and both stovetop and microwave cooking times. For the mom who’s going the puree route (which you don’t have to, by the way – Tirzah Mae ate purees maybe twice), it’s a good resource. The next largest section is a collection of multi-ingredient recipes that can be pureed to be fed to babies, as well as to the rest of the family. Again, if you’re going the puree route, it’s a good resource.

Now, every so often, Behan says something about a specific food that reflects traditional infant feeding biases that I don’t agree with (and that don’t have research to back them up) – like when she says that cucumbers are “not recommended for infants”, but are “a good snack food for older toddlers.” It’s true that cucumbers do not puree well, but I don’t see any reason why an infant eating stage 3 or 4 foods shouldn’t have little chunks of the inner portion of a cucumber (Tirzah Mae does whenever we’re eating cucumbers). Likewise, Behan writes that “onions are not a baby food” and suggests only that they can be included in recipes for older children because they add flavor. I’ve never seen any reason to avoid onions with babies (except cultural biases against it) – and we eat sauteed onions (or sauteed onions and zucchini or onions and peppers or…) rather frequently.

Other recommendations Behan makes are outdated – the most notable being that she gives the (then current) recommendation to avoid potentially allergenic foods in the first year. Pediatricians and dietitians had been giving that advice for years based on a “better safe than sorry” principle while research was being conducted to determine whether it made a difference. Well, in the past 2 (maybe 3?) years, the research has come out and indicates that holding off on potentially allergy-causing food has the exact opposite effect than the one we’d hoped for. We now know that introducing potential allergens between the ages of 4 and 6 months has a protective effect against the development of food allergies.

And then there are the philosophical questions that don’t necessarily have scientific evidence on their side – organic foods, local foods, humane foods, etc. Behan generally jumps on the bandwagon with each of these, although she does acknowledge to some degree that parents may have different priorities.

So… now for the difficult part. Do I recommend The Baby Food Bible?

If you’re a mom with a baby younger than 8 months, you intend to go the puree route, and you want to learn how to make your own baby food, this is a great resource. If you’ve got a baby older than 8 months, you should be working on introducing textures (which Behan doesn’t talk a whole lot about but which I consider a very important step in ensuring healthy eating patterns into adulthood – something I believe the research supports). If you intend to skip purees – hey, I did too – wanna compare notes? If you intend to just buy staged baby food from the store, the bulk of this book won’t apply to you.

Rating: 3 stars
Category: Infant feeding
Synopsis: Behan discusses then-current recommendations for infant feeding and gives a giant list of foods and how to prepare and puree them for your baby.
Recommendation: Worthwhile if your baby is under 8 months, you intend to feed your baby purees, and you want to learn how to make your own baby food.

Categories Book Reviews

Essential Oil Books

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Yesterday, I posted a very long review of the current state of research on essential oils. My conclusion was that

“There’s a lot of buzz about essential oils these days – and essential oils show some promise for enhancing health. But, the current state of research is such that an evidence-based practitioner should be extremely cautious about making any recommendations regarding essential oils. We simply don’t know enough.”

Those who read yesterday’s post will likely be unsuprised to find that my reviews of the following books about essential oils tend to be critical, especially of the health claims made within.

Even while I am skeptical regarding supposed health benefits of essential oil use, I tend to think that most essential oils, when diluted minutely and administered either topically or by inhalation (such as being diffused into a room), are unlikely to be dangerous. There are few documented adverse effects of essential oils in their usual uses, so I would feel much more comfortable using them in the “usual ways” than in some novel dilution or route. (I would be extremely cautious of using essential oils internally, as this is NOT a common use and therefore more of an unknown as far as potential toxicity goes.)

The Essential Oils Book: Creating Personal Blends for Mind & Body by Colleen K. Dodt

This is the first book I read on using essential oils – and the subtitle accurately represents what you’ll find within. The bulk of the book is “recipes” for essential oil blends to be used as cosmetics, bath blends, cleaning solutions, and the like. There are a wide variety of recipes, some using specific oils (particularly the ones for use on the body) and others simply giving direction to add “15 drops essential oils” (generally the cleaning or room freshening recipes).

The author is clearly fond of aromas and she shares her enthusiasm not only by encouraging the use of essential oils but also the use of fresh and dried flowers and herbs. That was fun. On the other hand, the author also seems pretty flaky and frequently mentions pseudo-scientific things (which might just be the state of aromatherapy at this point) like detoxifying for weight loss.

The third chapter describes around 30 essential oils, giving its information in loose headings: “Nature”, “Benefits”, “Suggested Uses”, “Blending”, and “Cautions”. Some oils contain all these headings, others only a few. Often information that seems to best fit under one heading appears under another. Sometimes cautions that I read of other places aren’t given here. And, of course, very few of the claims can be supported by scientific literature.

Nevertheless, I found this to be a useful introduction into how essential oils can be (and are) used in a variety of ways both in personal care and in the home.

Essential Energy: A guide to aromatherapy and essential oils by Nikki Goldstein

This full-color “artsy” book ended up being a fascinating blend of historical and practical information about aromatherapy. The first chapters describe the use of aroma throughout history (and throughout the world) and how smell and touch work together to accomplish aromatherapy’s magic. This book too describes a list of around 30 essential oils, giving historical information, “benefits”, “safe use”, and “cautions” for each one in addition to giving the common name, the botanical name, the source of the essence, where the plant is cultivated, what the aroma is like, and which perfume note the essential oil has. Finally, the author describes multiple ways to use essential oils (massage, aromatherapy baths, infusions, compresses, etc.) and lists a variety of ailments along with the essential oils that are purported to treat them.

If you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m skeptical of many of aromatherapy’s claims, feeling that there simply isn’t sufficient scientific evidence to encourage (or discourage) the use of aromatherapy. The “practical” portions of this book tend to make me more skeptical, as they give wildly improbable and unscientific potential mechanisms for aromatherapy’s action (smells don’t purify the blood, the liver does.) Furthermore, I struggle with all the contradictory results – oils that are both stimulating and relaxing? But that says more about the state of the science on aromatherapy than it does about this particular book.

For those interested in learning about the history of aromatics or in the steps to do a full-body aromatherapeutic massage, this would be a good resource. I enjoyed reading it.

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: Almost Green by James Glave

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I found it amongst the library’s construction-related books, so I must have known, when I picked it up, that James Glave’s Almost Green: How I Saved 1/6th of a Billionth of the Planet was about building. But by the time I got around to reading it, I had forgotten.

By that time, I thought maybe it was a generic “how I learned to be green” book. Which I don’t mind – it’s always fun to see what other people do to be green (the more potentially ridiculous, the better – solar cookers, composting toilets, peeing on your garden…)

The prologue, in which the author waxes eloquent about how he hates that he drives an SUV (but still does it anyway), had a paragraph explaining what the book was actually going to be about – so I did get some warning. I also learned, by the end of the prologue, that I dislike the author.

Why?

Because in the prologue, the author reveals that

  • He cusses. I consider cussing to be a sign of lack of intelligence – and that cussing in writing, where you have time and opportunity to choose your words carefully, is a sign of lack of writing ability.
  • He is apocalyptic. He believes in anthropogenic global warming (I am skeptical about the “anthropogenic” part) – but I expected that. What I have a hard time tolerating (whether by environmentalists or by Christians) is apocalytic thinking: “The sky is falling, the sky is falling.” Glave writes: “You probably already know that global warming presents the single greatest threat to humanity in all of history and the most profound challenge we face as a civilization.” Let’s just say I don’t know that and I can think of much greater threats and much more profound challenges.
  • He’s an eco-consumer. He states he was predisposed against “Eco Chic” (buying cool new “green” things) – but then clearly buys into, well, buying things. My own brand of environmentalism is all about avoiding waste – and Glave already reveals that he’s drunk the consumer-mentality Koolaid.

The body of the book got a little more interesting (to me) because the author was talking about his building process, about building materials, about home positioning and insulation and window e-values. And since Daniel and I are in the process of building our own home, that sort of thing is interesting to me.

But even as the body of the book became more interesting, my dislike for Glave remained.

Why?

  • He makes excuses. He says that global warming presents “the single greatest threat to humanity in all of history”, but then he makes all sorts of excuses for why he can’t possibly do the things that he knows would be best for avoiding that threat (for instance, live in a smaller space.) Now, I know there are plenty of things I could do to be more green – and I’ve made choices that aren’t the greenest. But I don’t think the world is ending because of my choices. I’m not weighing “keeping my kids occupied with lots of plastic and electronics in a too-large house” versus “the end of humanity” and choosing keeping my kids occupied with lots of plastic and electronics in a too-large house.
  • He makes poor trade-offs. Okay, so Glave is committed to making his studio very eco-friendly – and that’s great. He knows that trade-offs will have to be made. Unfortunately, the trade-offs he makes are not pulling his weight with family finances (he was supposed to bring in a certain amount of business with his writing, but slacked on that as he became consumed with his building project) and spending money that he and his wife had budgeted for other things (telling his wife after the decision had already been made). In my opinion, a green studio isn’t worth that price. (But…but…we discover at the end that he has found himself! And surely, self-discovery is worth failing to provide for your family, going back on your word, and being silently deceptive with your wife. Surely!)
  • He’s a chronological snob. He claims that heritage-style homes (made with old-timey features) are the ruination of the earth, stating that “Victorians had different priorities” and implying that historical building is by nature non-green. But he obviously never bothered to study the history of architecture or why homes have been built the way they were in the past. Yes, olden-days homes didn’t have styrofoam insulation or double-pane argon-filled glass – but they were built with local (often sustainable) materials, were designed to maximize heat retention in the winter and coolness in the summer, and were generally designed on a much smaller scale than we build today. (Yes, we see the big houses that remain – but even those were often not as big as we think, especially once we calculate how many people were living in each of those big houses.)
  • He calls those of us who prefer to minimize waste (and avoid the consumer race) “sanctimonious” – as in, “the more sanctimonious greens love to crow about the energy and emissions that go into manufacturing a new vehicle.” And after he’s spent an entire book looking down on his neighbors, his father-in-law (who gave his family the SUV mentioned in the prologue), and pretty much everyone as being not as green as he is – that feels like a slap in the face.

No. I don’t recommend this book. I think the author is a jerk.

Rating: 1 star
Category: Green building Memoir
Synopsis: The author describes the process of building a “green” studio in his yard.
Recommendation: I don’t recommend this. The author is a jerk.

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: I’d Trade My Husband for a Housekeeper by Trisha Ashworth and Amy Nobile

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I’d Trade My Husband for a Housekeeper is a full-book expansion on a chapter by the same name in Ashworth and Nobile’s I Was a Really Good Mom before I had Kids. Since I enjoyed the former book and this happened to be the first book in my library’s Dewey Decimal system for 646.78 (a section I started reading with Gottman’s And Baby Makes Three), I figured I’d go ahead and see what this book had to say.

The authors continue their previous pattern of starting each chapter with a tongue-in-cheek quiz before addressing what they consider to be important issues in marriage. They then close out with practical steps women can take to improve their marriages in the given dimension. Call-out boxes sprinkled throughout share women’s “Dirty Little Secrets” or other anecdotes from women related to the given topic.

The title might give the impression that the authors consider marriage expendable – but this is not at all the case. They start (and finish) the book with the view that marriages are worth keeping and that a HAPPY marriage is something worth striving for – both for the sake of each party and for their children’s sake.

What the authors found, as they interviewed women across the country for this book and their previous one, is that many women rated their marital happiness around 5 or 6 on a scale of 1 to 10 – but when they were asked what they were doing to make it better, they were dumbfounded. Those that responded often replied that they figured their marriages would get happier when the kids were in school or out of the house or in some other stage than they were currently in.

Ashworth and Nobile don’t think that’s an acceptable answer – which is why they wrote I’d Trade My Husband for a Housekeeper to offer women suggestions for improving the happiness of their marriages right now.

Several of their main points for improving happiness in marriage overlap with their suggestions for improving happiness as a mother: having realistic expectations, communicating with your husband, prioritizing your relationship. Others are new – adjusting your attitude and investing in having a good sex life with your husband. In general, it’s good sound advice.

This book would be a good choice for those who enjoyed Ashworth and Nobile’s style from I was a Really Good Mom and who want to invest more in their marriage. (If you haven’t read I was a Really Good Mom, maybe you should check out my review.) I think there are probably other books that might give equally good advice – this isn’t unique in its advice, per se. But what makes this book stand out among marriage advice books is its readability and light-hearted tone, a tone which overwhelmed moms are likely to find more appealing than the clinical tone many marriage advice books take.

It’s valuable to note that this book is not Christian advice – which means it’s missing some biggies (Trusting God immediately comes to mind, see 1 Peter 3:5-6). It also means there are vulgar terms littered throughout (mostly in the interviews with other women) – and, as I cautioned with the previous book, many of the quotes from other women display distressingly poor attitudes towards their husbands. While Ashworth and Nobile’s advice is generally good, there is little worth emulating from any of the “real woman” anecdotes (The “I’d trade my husband for a housekeeper” is one of the tamer snippets from those real woman anecdotes.)

For the record, I wouldn’t dream of trading my husband for anyone or anything.

Rating: 3 stars
Category: Marriage Advice
Synopsis: Ashworth and Nobile help women learn to “love your marriage after the baby carriage”.
Recommendation: Generally good advice – and less clinical than many books on marriage, which makes it a lot easier to read when you’re in the trenches of motherhood

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: The Lion’s World by Rowan Williams

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Why did C.S. Lewis write The Chronicles of Narnia?

Some praise Lewis’s “Christian allegory”, while others rage against the heavy handed allegory – Polly Toynbee of the Guardian writes that “Narnia represents everything that is most hateful about religion” and quotes Philip Pullman saying that Narnia is “one of the most ugly, poisonous things I have ever read.” (Her critical column can be found here).

But C.S. Lewis made it clear that Narnia was not intended allegorically – although he did have a purpose in writing Narnia, a purpose Toynbee quotes as to “make it easier for children to accept Christianity when they met it later in life”.

In The Lion’s World, Rowan Williams expands upon Lewis’s stated purpose, suggesting that “Lewis is trying to recreate for the reader what it is like to encounter and believe in God.” It’s a fascinating suggestion, and one that Williams backs up rather credibly with various arguments.

But The Lion’s World is not a book of arguments. Instead, it is more like sitting down for book club with one of the smartest and most widely read persons of your acquaintance and listening with fascinated interest as he gives his thoughts. And lest you think smartest and most widely read equals most pompous, let me quickly dissuade you of that idea. Williams is humble and approachable as well.

I didn’t take notes as I read, didn’t flag paragraphs, didn’t file things away for comment in my review. I just read, delighting as Williams danced from theme to theme, bringing up things I’d felt but not put together as I read the Chronicles.

Williams does not accept Lewis’s theology unquestioningly, he occasionally notes a tricky theological or cultural comment or a clunky bit of prose. But The Lion’s World doesn’t exist either as an apologetic or as a critic of the Chronicles or of Lewis – it is written as a conversation from one Chronicles enthusiast to another.

It was a pleasure to read. And, at just 144 gift-book-sized pages, it was an easy read too.

Rating: 4 stars
Category: Commentary on the Chronicles of Narnia
Synopsis: Rowan Williams discusses a number of themes he sees throughout the Chronicles of Narnia.
Recommendation: Fans of the Chronicles will likely find this book enjoyable.

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: Eat This, Not That! by David Zincezenko and Matt Goulding

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You’re flipping through a magazine at the doctor’s office and a column catches your eye. “Eat This!” it proclaims, pointing at a full-color photo of some restaurant entree. Beside it, another photo declares, “Not That!” A couple call-out boxes give fast and dirty nutrition info, the amount of calories you’ll save by switching from one entree to the other, and some other quick nutrition trivia about one or the other of the items.

Fun, right?

I imagine I’d think so if I saw such a column (although it’s unlikely I would, since it could – maybe still can? – be found in Men’s Health).

Now, put 415 pages of that together into a book about the dimensions of a children’s board book, except, well 415 pages long.

Fun?

Not exactly. Or at least, I didn’t think so.

Eat This, Not That! has 24 chapters, including “The Best (& Worst) Breakfasts in America”, “The Best (& Worst) Supermarket Foods”, and “The Best (& Worst) Foods for Your Blood Pressure”. Each chapter includes a two page “Eat This, Not That” spread like the one I listed above, before providing a countdown of 15-20 of the worst foods (with plenty of pictures). Each “worst food” (example: “saltiest packaged side”) is accompanied by an “eat this instead!” – giving a similar item that’s not as unhealthy. The end of each chapter gives a “Hall of Fame”, with about five items that are good bets.

Overall, the information is pretty good – mostly focused on calories, sodium, fat calories, and trans fats. Callout boxes highlight things to look for or substitutions to make (pesto instead of mayo switches healthy fats for unhealthy and adds antioxidants) and little blurbs here and there discuss how to choose a healthy sandwich, for example, or make a healthy pizza.

But a whole book of it is simply not sustainable. I love food. I love nutrition. But I struggled to make it through this book (that said, most people probably aren’t going to read every word like I did.)

Now, a lot of that might be because I don’t eat a lot of restaurant food or prepackaged meals or snacks. If I do, I’m choosing it as an indulgence. All that “if you switch this for that once a week, you can save x pounds per year” stuff? It doesn’t really apply to me because I don’t drink sweetened drinks, don’t eat packaged snacks, don’t buy frozen meals, don’t go to restaurants frequently. Someone else who finds themselves relying on convenience foods or restaurants for a greater portion of their intake might find this book more useful.

Of course, I wouldn’t be myself unless I had some sort of beef with this book nutritionally speaking. The authors are wary of additives and anything unpronounceable – in a way that ignores what science actually exists about the additives they’re denigrating and fails to recognize that some food additives actually make our food supply more safe! Believe it or not, a long ingredient list doesn’t mean you shouldn’t eat something. (In fact, I have quite a few recipes that have 20, 30, 50 ingredients once you count the ingredients that went into the components of the recipe.)

So… should you read this book? Eh, check it out of the library and browse it, especially if you use a lot of convenience foods and/or eat out a lot. But I wouldn’t buy it.

Rating: 2 stars
Category: Nutrition
Synopsis: The authors give lists of the best and worst foods you can buy at restaurants or prepackaged at the grocery store – and substitutions to improve your nutritional choices.
Recommendation: Neat concept for a column, okay to browse, but not great for reading straight through.

Categories Book Reviews

Book Review: Lean Mommy by Lisa Druxman

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Most women, regardless of their history, experience some degree of dissatisfaction with their bodies after having a baby. I, despite my long history of being comfortable in my own skin, have been no exception.

It wasn’t particularly about the weight for me – although that contributes. Because of how much fluid I’d gained, I lost over 50 pounds in the first three weeks of Tirzah Mae’s life. That might have felt good, except for the overwhelming sense I had that my body had failed me – and Tirzah Mae.

Sometimes people will remark that Tirzah Mae “just wanted to come out” – and I have to bite back an angry remark. Tirzah Mae’s premature birth had nothing to do with Tirzah Mae. It wasn’t her body that stopped regulating its blood pressure. It wasn’t her body that started spilling protein in her urine. It wasn’t her liver that shut down, making the womb inhospitable to life. It was MY body. It was MY womb that was poised to become a living coffin (although not for long – it would have killed me in addition to Tirzah Mae.) My body betrayed us. That’s why Tirzah Mae was born early.

Even when thankfulness for Tirzah Mae’s safe delivery overcame the sense of my body’s betrayal, I still felt dissatisfaction towards my body. My weight came down, my blood pressure started coming down – but I spent a month seeing in shades of gray except for occasional bright floaters. My weight came down and started rising again, stabilizing about 25 pounds higher than my pre-pregnancy weight. For the first time in my life, I was overweight.

But the weight wasn’t the worst of it. The worst was how weak I was. I exercised regularly during my pregnancy – my second trimester before I started retaining water was probably the fittest I’ve ever been. But after nearly a month of some form of bedrest, 8 days of it hospitalized, I couldn’t do anything. I was weak, I got winded, I felt every muscle in my body after formerly routine movements. My body betrayed me again.

The weakness (and a desire to be ready for VBAC next time around) is what motivated me to get exercising after Tirzah Mae was born – and I’ve been taking the opportunity to also read the books my library has available to help postpartum moms get fit.

Lisa Druxman’s Lean Mommy is the best book I’ve read so far.

Reasons I love Lean Mommy:

  • It’s not all about the weight – it’s [honestly] about making healthy lifestyle changes
  • It uses the [science-based] Cognitive-Behavior Therapy to help moms change self-defeating thoughts and actions
  • It gives a straightforward program for physical fitness and healthy eating habit formation – with different regimens depending on your starting fitness level
  • Apart from an overemphasis on choosing organic and avoiding additives, the nutrition advice was actually not terrible (which is saying a LOT!)

I was already working out regularly when I started reading this book – and what I was doing was working for me – so, apart from trying the workouts once, I didn’t follow this program. But I would have no qualms about doing this program straight through.

The author is the founder of “Stroller Strides” – a playdate slash exercise group that walks with their kids in strollers – and the workouts come from this program. Which means having a stroller definitely makes it easier to do this program (I didn’t when I first borrowed the book from the library). So does having exercise bands (I didn’t and still don’t – I used free weights.) That said, even if you don’t choose to do the three different workouts detailed in this book, the book still has plenty to offer in helping you set up an individualized program for getting fit after having a baby.

I recommend it.

Rating: 4 stars
Category: Postpartum fitness
Synopsis: The author helps mothers establish healthy exercise and eating habits after having a baby – all while enjoying their babies and modeling healthy attitudes towards their bodies, exercise, and eating.
Recommendation: An excellent resource for moms – even if they don’t intend to use the “Stroller Strides” workouts found within