Last night I hosted book club! It is always a really good excuse to get together with friends once a month and binge. Seriously, the food is always so good, and I always eat til I’m miserable. Yesterday was slumber party theme – everyone came in comfy clothes or PJs and I made pizzas – we also had mac ‘n cheese, rice krispie treats, leftover baby shower cake and cookies, and more! **Edited to add: Jessica’s sausage balls, which she slaved over. I’M SORRY, Jess. I tend to forget the meat!!
Our book club is very diplomatic; when we start running out of books we all bring suggestions and Marisa creates a survey so that we can each vote for two books – the top three or four books win! The past few books have been really good, in my opinion. We read Lean In (I read it in Costa Rica, and Shane swears he read it too since I made him listen to so many paragraphs – but I really related to it!!), Rules of Civility, and The Interestings. However, I just could not make it through this month’s book….nooooo!!! That rarely happens. But I feel like I gave it a fair shot – I read the first 50 pages and decided I just wasn’t into it. There are always members who didn’t read the month’s book so I decided to be one of them this time. It turns out a lot of people felt the same way, but supposedly the book gets better. What did we read?
It takes place in London and tells the story of several people and then ties them together. But I just could not get into the writing. I just don’t enjoy stream-of-consciousness that much. I might try to power through sometime in the future. But I let myself get caught up in a couple of other books anyway!
I loved Bringing Up Bebe. It was written by an American woman living in Paris when she had her first child (and then later, twins) and she began to notice and document the fundamental differences between American and French parenting. What makes French children sleep through the night by three months? Why are they not so picky about their food, and so well-behaved? I thought the most interesting part was how appalled French parents were at Americans treating children “like royalty.” Whenever a child walks into a room (or even when they’re a baby), do we do anything but fawn over him/her? Marisa made an interesting comment about that leading to our “Gen Y problem.” This is sort of off topic but I just loved this article so much: Why Gen Y Yuppies Are Unhappy. Anyway, I thought this book was a super interesting read and I definitely plan to use some of the tactics she learned from the French – but don’t worry, I won’t have Baby Gins eating frog legs or exclaiming, “Ooh la la!”
The third book I’ve been pawing has been a long read since I’ve been keeping up with each trimester. Now, I’m not running very much anymore, simply because my body really hates it in the final stretch. I am super lucky that I was able to run as much and as long as I did, so I’m not sweating bullets over when I can start hitting the pavement again. I know it’ll happen fairly soon after I have her, so I just keep telling myself that all the walking I’m doing builds different muscles and will make me a stronger runner when I do get back out there 
Walking is hard, yo! (Clearly I have been watching too much Breaking Bad, yo). I did like this book and it made me feel much more normal about running (since I get double-takes from drivers – not this guy - and fellow runners). It also makes me feel ok about stopping or taking it easy. The exercise has been good for the baby!
My book suggestion for the coming months was After Her – I read about it in Real Simple and it sounded really interesting:
In the summer of 1979, the Torricelli sisters, aspiring writer Rachel and her athletic younger sister, Patty, enjoy unlimited freedom exploring the mountain behind their home in Marin County, California. Their father is a charismatic detective for the San Francisco Police Department who has been chronically unfaithful to his wife, which has led to their divorce. Their emotionally fragile mother is severely depressed and spends a lot of time in her bedroom. The sisters amuse themselves by watching television through their neighbors’ picture windows (providing their own dialogue). But their suburban life is upended when a serial killer starts leaving the bodies of young girls all over the trails of their beloved mountain. Their father, who loved to make his own pasta and belt out Dean Martin songs, is greatly diminished over the many years he devotes to trying to find the vicious killer. The plot of Maynard’s eighth novel, although based on the story of the real-life Trailside Killer, strains credulity at times; it is less a thriller than an affecting portrait of the relationship between a father and his daughters. –Joanne Wilkinson (via Booklist)
Has anyone read it?
Nothing to do with books, except it’s by my nightstand when I’m reading – but I am SO INTO straws right now. Now I don’t have to sit up to take a drink of water from the ginormous cup I use these days (yes that is a Texas Sammy cup from Shane’s college days – it is also glow-in-the-dark). I usually wake up every 2 hours to go to the bathroom and drink a bunch of water. But I actually slept through the night last night!! That never happens!
What have you read lately? Any book recommendations?
