Reading is my oldest and favorite hobby.  I literally can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t love to curl up with a good book.  Here are my reads for April, 2015…

A Dangerous Place (Maisie Dobbs #11), by Jacqueline Winspear – The eleventh installment in the Maisie Dobbs mystery series finds Maisie on her way home to England after traveling the world, experiencing great happiness and enduring unspeakable tragedy.  Now she’s been summoned home by her stepmother, but as her ship docks in Gibraltar, Maisie finds she can’t go further and disembarks.  In Gibraltar, Maisie stumbles – literally – over the body of a Sephardic Jewish photographer.  As she searches for the photographer’s killer, Maisie becomes involved in political intrigue and finds herself in the midst of a civil war.  I really enjoyed this episode in Maisie’s story.  She has grown so much as a character – many of the traits which annoyed me about Maisie in previous books were gone, as she has apparently learned from her mistakes.  I was touched by her story, more so in this book than ever before, and was truly rooting for her to find some peace and happiness.  I did miss Billy, but I’m hopeful that the next novel will find Maisie back in London and reunited with her old colleague.

Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys – I’ve been meaning to read this reimagining of the marriage of Mr. Rochester and Bertha Mason for quite some time.  I really enjoyed the writing style – the whole book felt like a sultry tropical dream – but wasn’t thrilled with the plot or character development.  Of course, Mr. Rochester is my favorite brooding literary leading man, so it was hard to read him as, basically, the villain.  But there were other disconnects as well.  For more, see my full review here.

Overwhelmed: Work, Play and Love When No One Has the Time, by Brigid Schulte – This book wowed me.  Time management, and balancing all of my obligations as a wife, mom, employee, daughter, friend and community member, has been on my mind for quite some time and Overwhelmed perfectly articulated the pressures that working parents feel.  The book was mainly directed toward working moms, so I was squarely within the target demographic, which may be why it spoke to me so strongly.  For more impressions on Overwhelmed, see my full review here.

Tales from Another Mother Runner: Triumphs, Trials, Tips and Tricks From the Road, by Dimity McDowell and Sarah Bowen Shea – I’ve been a fan of Another Mother Runner, the website/blog/podcast/social media community created by Dimity and SBS (the original Mother Runners!) for years now.  I read their first book, Run Like a Mother, before I even was a mother.  This collection of essays is quite up to the usual AMR standard – funny, poignant in places, and crazy inspiring.  It made me want to lace up my Brooks and hit the road!  Recommended for all runners – you don’t have to be a mom to enjoy this book.

All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood, by Jennifer Senior – Meh.  I was really looking forward to reading this book, which approached the issue of parenthood from an unusual perspective – examining not the effects of parents on children, but the effects of children on parents.  But I was ultimately disappointed.  While there were occasional moments of recognition (I saw so much of my relationship in Angie and Clint’s marriage) the book was mostly a downer.  There would be two long chapters about what a pain kids are and how miserable they make their parents, followed by a short chapter about how occasionally they bring you joy, too.  That was the pattern.  Blah.  I did find striking a phrase which Senior repeated often as she examined the modern American middle class childhood – children have become “economically worthless but emotionally priceless.”  That’s about right.  I’m sure she made many good and relevant points, but I just didn’t like the presentation.  I think Senior focused unduly on the hardships children create (and they DO create hardships, that’s for sure) and mostly glazed over the good things about parenthood.  It was a bit disappointing.

A Beautiful Blue Death (Charles Lenox #1), by Charles Finch – Charles Lenox is a Victorian aristocrat, expert on the ancient Romans, and armchair traveler (would-be real traveler, but life always seems to get in his way).  He’s also an amateur detective with an established reputation for unraveling the most challenging of puzzles.  So when his childhood friend, Lady Jane Grey, requests that he look into the suspicious death of her former housemaid, Lenox naturally agrees.  But the death of the housemaid proves only the opening act in a much bigger drama.  I enjoyed this book.  The storytelling was decent and relatively engaging.  It’s the first entry in a mystery series, and I usually find that when it comes to mysteries, the first is the weakest – so I expect that the series will pick up and get really good, really soon.  I’ll be picking up the next Lenox mystery in short order.

Siblings Without Rivalry: How to help your children live together so you can live too, by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish – For some time now, I’d been meaning to read Faber and Mazlish’s other book, How to Talk so Kids Will Listen and Listen so Kids Will Talk, but I ended up coming to Siblings Without Rivalry first.  Nugget is still brand new and Peanut has been doing pretty well with her adjustment, but I figure it’s never too early to start learning strategies for ensuring a good sibling relationship.  Siblings Without Rivalry did what it promised – gave me plenty of ideas to implement, both now and as the kids grow.  Some are common sense (avoid comparisons, don’t pigeonhole kids into family “roles”) but there was plenty of practical information in here.  I didn’t much care for the narrative style, but the information was solid.

Seven books!  That’s a good month of reading with a little guy in the house.  I’d say the reason I’ve been able to knock out so many books this month has been…

Ahhhhh, the joys of the lap nap.  There’s nothing quite like whiling away the afternoon with a book while a warm baby snoozes on your lap.  I loved reading through Peanut’s lap naps too, and I know that snuggling Nugget while I read is going to be one of my favorite memories from this maternity leave as well.  I read some good books this month – the highlight being Overwhelmed, which prompted me to write not one, but two blog posts about it.  (I could have written more, but I decided to restrain myself.  It wasn’t easy.)  For May I have some fun Jane Austen adaptations to look forward to and a couple of parenting books that I’ve been meaning to read, and I think I’ll be doing some reading off my own shelves as well (fingers crossed).  I’m looking forward to another good month of reading… some of which, I hope, will take place OUTSIDE in the SUNSHINE.