A Few Book Reviews

I love the library. Most of the books that we want we can get through one of the branches of the Orange County library. We put them on hold and then pick them up at the one closest to us. It's great. We've added a few that we want to keep as reference to our Amazon baby registry. Lately, I've read these:

The Continuum Concept by Jean Liedloff
This book is interesting. Liedloff uses observations from living among a jungle tribe to make the case for holding our babies almost constantly from birth to 6-8 months. She basically blames many of our society's problems on not being held "in-arms" enough as an infant. I'm glad I read it, because it gives me needed perspective, but I think some balance is necessary. We'll have to see how this plays out when our baby comes!

Montessori From the Start by Lillard and Jessen
This is an interesting book to balance with. Montessori believed in raising our kids to be independent, even from infancy. So, this book presents the Montessori views that babies need to have opportunities to learn at their level from birth. This includes a bed on the floor so that they have increased access to movement, very specific and organized learning opportunities, and much more. I don't want to be a Montessori nazi, but I'm definitely putting many of these ideas into practice.

Your Best Birth by Lake, Epstein, and Morris
I'm sure there are many natural birth books out there. This is just one I ran across. A great intro. The correlating movie is on netflix, too.

Real Food for Mother and Baby by Nina Planck
I found this book through her first book. This book talks about the fertility diet, the best things to eat while pregnant, and the best things to feed your baby. I am now taking cod liver oil (!), eating real salt , eating more fish (especially wild salmon) and meat, plus many other little changes as a result of this book.

Why We Get Fat and What to Do About It by Gary Taubes
After reading Real Food and the Nourishing Traditions Cookbook, plus Colin reading up on the GAPS diet, we wanted to do a little more research on this way of eating. Basically, we wanted to know if eating a whole lot of eggs, fatty meat, butter, etc. was really good for us. All of the books we read had stats to back them up, but we were still feeling a little unsure. Then Colin heard Gary Taubes on the radio, so we got this book from the library. He shows that the research has never proven that what makes us lose weight is burning more calories than we take in. Crazy, right? All that matters is that we eat less carbohydrates - especially sugar and refined carbs. He makes the point, though, that some people may have to stop eating fruit and whole grains as well. This book really blew me away. The research shows that fat isn't what makes us fat (and it doesn't give us heart problems either). It's carbs that do all that bad stuff.

Mystically Wired by Ken Wilson
Most of what I've been reading is on healthy diet and baby related stuff, so this book has been a breath of fresh air. If you want to breathe some new life into your prayer time, I highly recommend it.