Kittymomma's Adventures

Here is the list of books I managed to read cover to cover in 2009. I did not include the many magazines, blog entries, Internet articles, and assorted chapters from various books in which I also indulged. My numbers are way down this year due to the arrival of my precious Max, as evidenced by the fact that most of the books I did read are pregnancy and parenting books.

You will notice that I also enjoy chick lit, feline detective mysteries, adolescent lit, and anything by and/or about L.M. Montgomery. I heartily recommend all of the fiction books on this list to anyone with tastes in the same vein. (Really, I recommend them to anyone.) Of the pregnancy books, I loved Bountiful, Beautiful, Blissful and Birthing from Within the most. I was surprised by the fact that the Lamaze Guide was amazingly helpful and inspiring. It encouraged me to take Lamaze classes, which was a mistake, since the classes were most definitely NOT helpful and inspiring. At least the ones we took weren’t. Stick with the book.

Some of you might be surprised to know that I did not find the classics What to Expect When You’re Expecting and the “Girlfriends’ Guides” that helpful. (What to Expect the First Year has some useful chapters at the beginning, but I stopped taking it off the shelf after Max’s one-month birthday.)  What to Expect When You’re Expecting was great at conveying basic info, but it tends to focus on what can go wrong. (I did love the monthly and weekly breakdown of the baby’s development. That’s pretty much all I used for most of my pregnancy.) The “Girlfriends’ Guides” are great for a laugh, but I just did not consider them a fount of useful info. During pregnancy, the main benefit of The Girlfriends’ Guide to Pregnancy was that nothing was as bad as I had feared it was going to be after I read that book. After Max was born, I reread and basically clung to The Girlfriends’ Guide to Surviving the First Year of Motherhood. The humor and sympathy in Iovine’s writing got me through those first few weeks to a large extent.

If anyone has read or does read any of these books, I’d love to hear your take.

1. Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery (reread)
2. Cat on the Edge: A Joe Grey Mystery by Shirley Rousseau Murphy
3. The Girlfriends’ Guide to Baby Gear: What to buy, what to borrow, and what to blow off! by Vicki Iovine with Peg Rosen
4. Forever Princess by Meg Cabot
5. The Secrets of Peaches by Jodi Lynn Anderson
6. The Girlfriends’ Guide to Surviving the First Year of Motherhood by Vicki Iovine
7. Lucy Maud Montgomery: The Gift of Wings by Mary Henley Rubio
8. The Official Lamaze Guide: Giving Birth with Confidence by Judith Lothian and Charlotte DeVries
9. What to Expect When You’re Expecting by Heidi Murkoff
10. The Boy Next Door by Meg Cabot (reread)
11. Boy Meets Girl by Meg Cabot (reread)
12. The Girlfriends’ Guide to Surviving the First Year of Motherhood by Vicki Iovine (reread)
13. Bountiful, Beautiful, Blissful: Experience the Natural Power of Pregnancy and Birth with Kundalini Yoga and Meditation by Gurmukh (reread)
14. Birthing from Within by Pam England CNM, MA and Rob Horowitz PhD
15. Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella
16. The Cat Who Talked Turkey by Lilian Jackson Braun
17. Anne of Windy Poplars by L.M. Montgomery (reread)
18. The Cat Who Sang for the Birds by Lilian Jackson Braun