booooooks

Amazingly, I still care about things that have nothing to do with Me and My Fetus, and also My Book.

I still care about literature! Although you wouldn't know it, because I haven't done a review in a while. Which means my memory is a little fuzzy on a couple of these, but a good book is a good book, and I always remember if I enjoyed one.

Marcus Sakey's Brilliance is a little bit Heroes, a little bit X-Men, but without all the fancy costumes and powers to slice your body in half with laser-beam eyes. Freaks of nature are being born, but they're born with certain enhanced mental skills that intimidate the regular populace. It's likely a bit of a commentary on racism and other prejudices. I thought it was pretty entertaining, possibly made for the movies, and definitely the first in a series.

Speaking of made for the movies, The Wolf of Wall Street will be out in November and stars Leonardo DiCaprio. I am going to haul my massively pregnant ass to the theater to see it because I found the story fascinating. The book is written by Jordan Belfort, who was federally convicted of various stock market shenanigans (I can't pretend to understand much of that part of it) that enabled him to live quite luxuriously on the Gold Coast, snort mountains of coke, swallow vats of quaaludes, and bonk dozens of prostitutes (while married with children). It's just really interesting to hear this dude's perspective on things. I think he might be kind of sorry for how everything went down, but I think deep in his heart of hearts he's pretty much vastly impressed with himself for pulling it off for as long as he did. The book is pretty funny, too, so that kept it rather entertaining.

Well, how'd this book get in there?! So yeah, I read Expecting Better, but I think you may still find my assessment interesting because of the press the author's been getting. It's a bit controversial -- she's an economist, so she's a pro at evaluating statistics and studies. What she's done is evaluated dozens of studies that have already been done, and which the medical community cites all the time as evidence for why we are told to behave the way we are when we're pregnant. And basically, she debunks a lot of it. There's a lot of interesting information in the book, although not much of it is all that surprising. I think I was surprised that you have a higher risk of getting toxoplasmosis from gardening (MUCH higher) than from cleaning a litter box, and also that if you drink moderately throughout pregnancy, your child is more likely to be well-behaved and intelligent than children whose mothers abstained throughout. Try convincing my husband of this fact, though. I'm still forbidden to imbibe. Another fact she sort of throws in there off-the-cuff that I found sort of astounding is that the whole "you can never let your children watch TV before the age of 2" thing is complete bull shit. I'll let her explain why.

I'm really into Mindy Kaling right now. I think she and I would totes be friends, and I find her hilarious. Her show -- The Mindy Project -- is great, and you should go back and start watching from the beginning if you haven't seen it. She's also at least three times more entertaining on Twitter and Instagram than most other celebrities. So that's my preface. I know I mentioned a couple weeks ago I'd just started reading Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me (And Other Concerns), and then I'd blasphemed and said it was better than Tina Fey's book. But in truth what I found was that the beginning was really stellar and then it sort of tapers off from there. It's still funny, but it wanders a bit. Still, it was interesting to learn about her start in showbiz, even if the book didn't have me rolling with laughter the entire time.

So as you can see in small print on the cover, Daniel Woodrell is the dude who wrote Winter's Bone. I never read that, but I did see the movie, and it's an impressive story. And I think The Maid's Version is, too. The story's about a maid (Alma) whose sister dies, along with many other people, in a dance hall explosion. It's told from the perspective of her grandson. The incident rules the rest of Alma's life and ruins her relationships with many people. It's a bit of a mystery. Who would blow up the dance hall, and why? Alma has her theory, and Woodrell works up to it. It sounds simplistic, but the interest is in the writing details, as it is with most well-written books. He's definitely a master of his craft.


I'm not sure what's up next for me. The last book in the MaddAdam series is out, so I may choose that. Then Stephen King has also released Doctor Sleep -- a followup to The Shining. I'm definitely interested but worried about crazy preggo dreams. Other possibilities are Jumpa Lahiri's Lowland, and Adelle Waldman's The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. And I suppose I could start reading some baby books. Any suggestions?