A Year of Reading!

It has been over a year since I wrote about the books I've read! I'm sure no one even cares about these posts, but for documenting sake, I like to do them. And I'm hoping I remembered all of them, but I'm sure I missed a few. So since I'm madly trying to catch up on blogging before Christmas, I'm keeping this short and sweet. I organized them from the ones I liked the least to the ones I liked best.

Except for this first one. I obviously read this for information's sake, so I don't see how I could really classify it with the others. And while I haven't read any other natural child birthing books to compare it to, I really did like this book. It doesn't teach a specific "method" for natural birth, but is more of a general guideline. The most important reason I'd recommend it, whether you're getting an epidural or not, is because of how well it educates you on child birth in general. I think it's really important to understand the stages of labor and what your body is doing throughout them. It also teaches you to have a voice in the delivery room. If a doctor or nurse is being pushy in a way that goes against your birth plan, it's important to vocalize your wishes. Not in a contentious way, but in a firm way. Right after I read this book, I watched an episode of A Baby Story that made my jaw drop. To be very brief, the woman was in labor and not progressing. So the doctor came in and said he wanted to do a C-Section. He said the baby was fine and not in danger and neither was the mother, but since labor hadn't progressed in a few hours, he wanted to a C-section. The family was upset by it, but didn't question it at all!! They basically just figured the doctor knew best and went with it. Now, I know the doctor usually does know best, but in the situation given, a C-section is not necessary!!! This book taught me that one thing you could always request is an hour. "Could we have another hour and then decide?" It never hurts to ask. Anyway, there's obviously a lot more to that, but I would definitely recommend this book!

I was really excited for this book, but it kind of fell flat for me. I felt like there were a lot of tedious details that made it longer than necessary. It's basically about the end of the Civil War and the events that led up to the assassination of Lincoln. Even though I didn't really like it, I'd still like to try reading Killing Lincoln.

This was another book that died with the tedious details. It's separated into two stories... the story of the White City.... the World's Fair in Chicago in the late 1800's. And the story of a serial killer, H.H. Holmes that lived during the same time period. It was like reading two different stories, every other chapter. Morbidly enough, I was pretty fascinated by the chapters about the serial killer. The problem was, the details about the World's Fair were mind-numbingly thorough. Things about the architecture and architects that no regular person could care much about. But maybe, that's just me. I did learn quite a lot of interesting things about the fair in general but could have cut out about 75% of the other facts. And it's LONG! Plan on devoting a lot of time to it.

This is the first book I listened to and I think listening to it wasn't the best idea. At that time, I didn't know you could speed up the narration and it was terribly slow. The story just dragged out forever. However, it was an interesting story and gave me a better perspective on the Navajo people that I hadn't previously had.  It was about a group of Navajo men that enlisted in the army during WWII and were instrumental in us winning the war by developing a secret code that depended on the Navajo language. 

This was a fictional book that's mystery captivated me most of the time. It's a very unusual story that requires a lot of imagination and speculation. I think I enjoyed it until about 3/4 of the way through when I was ready for it to be over. :) I would recommend it, however, to someone with a bit more patience, than myself.  

So this shows just how bad my memory is!! I read this over a year ago and don't remember a lot of the specifics. It's a kind of economics book that explains the author's theory on how little things can make a big difference. He describes rules of epidemics and what sociological changes can make an idea "tip". And it's a lot more interesting than I just made it sound!

I would have never read this if it wasn't for book club, but it turned out to be really good! It's about a woman in Africa that sets up the first woman's detective agency in her country. It's fictional, but includes real details about the ideas, customs and traditions in Africa, which I found fascinating! (The author grew up in Africa.) Just about every chapter is a new mystery that she is called on to solve and it really captured my attention. It's a really quick and easy, but good read!

I love memoirs. And I was glued to this book until I found out it wasn't real! Bug! It totally makes you think it's an actual biography. And I guess a lot of it was based on a real woman, but not as much as you're led to believe. Still, it was very well written and tells the story of a young girl, sold into slavery, so to speak.  Obviously, geishas are a real thing, so it was still interesting to learn a bit about that "trade". I had a hard time putting it down.

This was such a good book. I think just about everyone has heard of Stephanie Nielsen, the Nie Nie Dialogues and her story of crashing in a plane with her husband, but it was still so interesting to read about it all in greater detail. I loved hearing about her life growing up in Provo, how she met her husband, and the beginnings of their marriage and family. She is inspiring in how much love she has for being a mom. She truly has found joy in motherhood. Her story of survival and being guided out of the plane by her deceased Grandmother was as touching as it was faith promoting. And then all the simple things about our bodies, that we take for granted, was highlighted by her struggle to recover from the severe burns all over her body. Her story is truly amazing. (Side note: I got to meet her last week on Thanksgiving!!)

I don't even know how I could summarize this book. Obviously, it was my favorite, since it's last, but I just couldn't do it justice in any type of summary. The only thing I can say is, read it! :) I'm sure it could be noted as a controversial book, but I didn't feel that way about it at all. The most important things it did for me was encourage me to live my life more righteously and try harder at being in tune with the Holy Ghost. Oh yeah, and get my food storage going!!!

I'm including this one last, because I haven't finished it, and I don't think I probably will. I tried listening to it, but for some reason, it's been really hard to listen to. I wish I had just bought a hard copy! I've listened to most of it and can tell I probably would have liked it if I had read it, but not so much otherwise. Sometimes for me, I need to see the words to generate the story in my mind. That probably made no sense! It's a very mysterious, inventive sort of story though. I'm sure most people would really enjoy it!

Any good recommendations??!!!
I'm currently listening to the Great Gatsby, and have the Elizabeth Smart story and The Other Boleyn Girl on deck. What has been your favorite read this year?!