Review: My War: Killing Time in Iraq — Colby Buzzell

Shop Indie Bookstores I never heard of Colby Buzzell’s blog “My War” back in 2004 when he started blogging from Mosul. He was there with the 23rd Infantry Regiment, 3/2 from Ft. Lewis. I did however receive a phone call from my boyfriend (now my husband) from Mosul in 2004. It wasn’t the longest call [...]

Review: A Man Without Country — Kurt Vonnegut

With the exception of a book published posthumously, A Man Without Country, was Vonnegut’s final work. The LA Times said it, “may be as close as Vonnegut ever comes to a memoir.” Right they were.

Review: The Joy of Pregnancy

Shop Indie Bookstores The subtitle of The Joy of Pregnancy says it all, “The Complete, Candid and Reassuring Companion for Parents-To-Be.” Written by Tori Kropp, R.N. with a forward by Michael Scott, M.D. (yes, his name made me giggle), this is one of two pregnancy books I would highly recommend. The other is Your Pregnancy [...]

Review: Your Pregnancy for the Father-to-Be

Shop Indie Bookstores This is the daddy companion book to Your Pregnancy Week by Week. My dad bought it for my husband shortly after we announced that I was pregnant. I was surprised that he sent it and more surprised that hubs read the whole thing. In fact, he brought it out the field with [...]

Review: Your Pregnancy Week-by-Week

Shop Indie Bookstores When I was pregnant, my dad bought this for me (and bought Your Pregnancy for Father’s-To-Be for my hubby). It was by far one of my favorite pregnancy books. It was well-organized and written without any of the terrifying “everything that could possibly go wrong and probably will” kind of language. It’s [...]

Review: Hip Mama Survival Guide — Ariel Gore

I picked up Hip Mama Survival Guide thinking it would be a fun read to break up the monotony of pregnancy books I was reading. It met my expectations there, but fell short in some other areas. The book was published in 1998 and from all the pop-culture references in it, you can tell. There [...]

Review: Belly Laughs by Jenny McCarthy

I should start out this review by saying that I didn’t have high hopes for this book. I’d heard all kinds of wonderful things from pregnant or recently pregnant people about it. I heard it was hilarious, sarcastic, kind of scary, honest, and a fun read. Most importantly, I had heard nothing negative about it, [...]

Review: Last Journey

Last Journey — A Father and Son in Wartime is a book unlike any other I’ve ever read. As I mentioned earlier this week, this book has been difficult for me to review. It is hard to separate personal, emotional reactions to a book like this from a review. I wanted to be able to [...]

On Reading Last Journey — Review to Come

I finished Last Journey on Monday and am still processing. Usually, while I read a book, I am already thinking about what I want to say about it. In fact, I frequently jot down notes and pages I’d like to revisit or quote from. I have to admit that this book was particularly difficult for [...]

Review: A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier — Ishmael Beah

Shop Indie BookstoresUp until recently I had never picked up a non-fiction book that wasn’t some form of required reading. The one book that got me on a temporary non-fiction roll was A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah. I had seen an interview with Ishmael Beah on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart and [...]