Category Archives: racisim

The Midwife of Hope River by Patricia Harman

Would I recommend it? If you came over to visit and share a cup of tea with me this evening I’d pick this book off the table where it is sitting and send it home with you.The Midwife of Hope River by Patrica Harman

Before I placed it in your hands I would probably check to make sure that you didn’t have issues reading about childbirth- it’s a book about a midwife after all.

But, if you did have issues with that sort of thing, I would tell you the story of the birthing class I went to before Ivy was born.

All three of my girls were born at a birth center staffed by midwives and when I was pregnant with Ivy we attended the requisite birthing class.  In our first class they told us their intent was to turn us into “mini-midwives” and teach us as much about the process of childbirth as they could in the few Saturdays that we had.  Which they did with the help of videos. Many, many videos of childbirth that we would watch and then discuss. On the last day we were given the opportunity to share any thoughts we had with our classmates. One of the husbands, in a room full of very pregnant, first time mothers, spoke up and told us that watching the videos was sort of like watching horror films. That they are awful at first but then you get desensitized to them.

And then, I would give you the book anyway.

The Wednesday Sisters by Meg Waite Clayton

For almost three years an amazing thing has been happening – I’ve been blogging.

And I love my blog, I really do.

I write, you read, it’s amazing.

Amazing and but for fifty years I could have been one of the women in the book:

Struggling to find time to hand write stories to bring to their friends to read and critique while surrounded by their collective children.

Typing copies up to be mailed in to magazines and editors just to get someone other than their best friends to read what they have to say.

And here I lay in my bed, no doubt killing my neck with my horrible posture, clicking away at my keyboard and then with the push of a button and the magic of the internet – there it is for anyone to read.

Amazing.

The Wednesday Sisters

Would I recommend it? Yes. This book is, of course, about so much more than a group of writing women. And while there are many, books about a group of friends going through life together the voice of the main character really struck a cord with me this time.

I am curious to know if you’ve read it if you felt the same. Was it really a good read or did it just speak to me?

The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay

Twelve years ago John and I were dating and I was in the hospital recovering from a surgery, doped up on painkillers. John came to visit me every day I was there and one night he rounded up a TV and VCR and brought in one of his favorite movies for us to watch – The Power of One. Sadly due to all those painkillers I have a vivid memory of John sitting by my bed holding my hand, a vague memory of a TV showing up and absolutely no recollection of the movie. Nothing. Nada. In fact it doesn’t matter how many times John has told me over the last twelve years that I have seen the movie, I still don’t remember it.

Two months ago I brought home a book a friend had lent us saying it was a good “guy read” and I should give it to John. I dutifully passed the message on to John telling him it was “something about power of one?” Which then spurred on the same discussion we have repeated over the last twelve years about how I have seen that movie, and I say I don’t remember any of it and he says he loves it… yada, yada, yada.

But now our conversation has changed because now I’ve read the book and he remembers the movie and I can say things like, “What do you mean the movie doesn’t have Hoppie in it?!” Which is far better than the I still don’t remember the movie conversation we had been having.

Would I recommend it? Yes.  This is a good “guy book” in a way that isn’t just shooting people, running around and blowing stuff up.  It should also be mention that while I am distinctly not a guy myself, I thoroughly enjoyed it and have recommended it to other not guys. Although my girlyness probably came out when the boxing made me cringe, I can’t help it, I’m not a guy.