Reading Rainbow--the sucky edition
Usually when I write a book post I like all the books. This is because if a book sucks, I stop reading it. I don't have any hard and fast rules like Nancy Pearl's 30 pages minus your age or whatever it is. I just read and if the book isn't at least mildly engaging, I move on. Too many books, too little time! Ahem. Anyway, here's a stack of stuff I'm returning to the library today:
Dave Barry's History of the Millenium (So Far): This was just a collection of his end-of-the-year newspaper columns since 1999. Maybe he's running out of money and pulled something together really quick to sell. Once I realized that I had read everything in it once before (sadly, about thirty seconds after I checked it out), I put it in the 'return' pile.
How Smart is Your Baby? by Glenn and Janet Doman: It does have a catchy title and I thought it would be about developmental milestones and so on, but it's a regimen for making your baby smart. Tips include: build a crawling track for your baby all the way around your bed so your baby can do laps while you sleep; blow an air horn at your baby to see how she responds to threatening sounds; create flashcards for your baby of increasing difficulty and start running through them when the kiddo is a week old; and so on. I skimmed through this one just because it was too amusing to put down, but it was not a book I'd recommend for serious, baby-smartening reasons. And if you are trying to smarten up your 1-week-old, you may have too much time on your hands. I was lucky if I got my teeth brushed every day at that stage.
Forced to be Family by Cheryl Dellasega: I thought this might be helpful for getting along with in-laws but it turned out to be a collection of horror stories. I guess it made me feel better...at least there are no fist fights with my husband's family (usually).
What Mothers Do by Naomi Stadlen: This one wasn't truly bad, it was just poorly written and very redundant. I'd recommend Mask of Motherhood by Susan Maushart on the same subject.
What the Other Mothers Know by Michele Gendlmn, Ilene Graff and Donna Rosenstein: This one wasn't bad either, just not really for me. It tries to cover birth through college which I think is too large a scope, and it's written for yuppies with lots of money and nannies and such.
Before I Die by Jenny Downham: This was one of those popular young adult novels where the teenage girl is dying of some illness (in this case, leukemia) and does typical teenage things and then dies at the end. Why do people read these books? That is what I asked myself after speed reading it in three hours while wiping tears off my cheeks.
The Gun Seller by Hugh Laurie: Yep, that Hugh Laurie. Dr. House (among other roles) wrote a book. And you know what? It was actually the only decent book in the bunch. I loved this book. Hugh Laurie writes a good funny story in the detective/mystery vein. Thanks to Fauxmiddlechild (I think!) for pointing this one out to me.
Gotta go, hubby wants to use the computer...
Dave Barry's History of the Millenium (So Far): This was just a collection of his end-of-the-year newspaper columns since 1999. Maybe he's running out of money and pulled something together really quick to sell. Once I realized that I had read everything in it once before (sadly, about thirty seconds after I checked it out), I put it in the 'return' pile.
How Smart is Your Baby? by Glenn and Janet Doman: It does have a catchy title and I thought it would be about developmental milestones and so on, but it's a regimen for making your baby smart. Tips include: build a crawling track for your baby all the way around your bed so your baby can do laps while you sleep; blow an air horn at your baby to see how she responds to threatening sounds; create flashcards for your baby of increasing difficulty and start running through them when the kiddo is a week old; and so on. I skimmed through this one just because it was too amusing to put down, but it was not a book I'd recommend for serious, baby-smartening reasons. And if you are trying to smarten up your 1-week-old, you may have too much time on your hands. I was lucky if I got my teeth brushed every day at that stage.
Forced to be Family by Cheryl Dellasega: I thought this might be helpful for getting along with in-laws but it turned out to be a collection of horror stories. I guess it made me feel better...at least there are no fist fights with my husband's family (usually).
What Mothers Do by Naomi Stadlen: This one wasn't truly bad, it was just poorly written and very redundant. I'd recommend Mask of Motherhood by Susan Maushart on the same subject.
What the Other Mothers Know by Michele Gendlmn, Ilene Graff and Donna Rosenstein: This one wasn't bad either, just not really for me. It tries to cover birth through college which I think is too large a scope, and it's written for yuppies with lots of money and nannies and such.
Before I Die by Jenny Downham: This was one of those popular young adult novels where the teenage girl is dying of some illness (in this case, leukemia) and does typical teenage things and then dies at the end. Why do people read these books? That is what I asked myself after speed reading it in three hours while wiping tears off my cheeks.
The Gun Seller by Hugh Laurie: Yep, that Hugh Laurie. Dr. House (among other roles) wrote a book. And you know what? It was actually the only decent book in the bunch. I loved this book. Hugh Laurie writes a good funny story in the detective/mystery vein. Thanks to Fauxmiddlechild (I think!) for pointing this one out to me.
Gotta go, hubby wants to use the computer...