Book 'Em
Check out Home Remedies and other great titles this month, then discuss with Caroline Leavitt in our forum.
By Caroline Leavitt
- What's Hot:
- Waiting for Daisy
- By Peggy Orenstein
- Bloomsbury, $24
Thirty percent of all women have trouble getting pregnant, and that sad statistic included journalist Peggy Orenstein. Diagnosed with cancer just as she decided to get pregnant at 35, Orenstein began a six-year journey down "the rabbit hole of infertility" until she finally had her own bundle of joy. Ebullient, heart-wrenching, and honest, Daisy delves into how the pain of trying to conceive can fray even the happiest marriage. Part of Orenstein's genius is how she stretches her subject like a rubber band to write engagingly about single-by-choice Japanese women (they're called "parasites"), rituals marking miscarriage and abortion, and the courage of a Hiroshima survivor whose face was destroyed. Funny and wise, Waiting for Daisy is a page-turning delight.
- What's Important:
- Leap! What Will We Do with the Rest of Our Lives?
- By Sara Davidson
- Random House, $26
Why is a book about the boomer generation perfect for busy parents? Because it doesn't just speak to people entering the northern side of life, but to anyone who has ever faced an impasse and didn't know why. Davidson urges people to accept and roll with often unthinkable change—to get back to the basics and discover what is truly important. Over 90 people, including Carly Simon, Tom Hayden, and even a Benedictine nun, write candidly about facing that moment when life seems to present fewer opportunities, a space Davidson dubs "the narrows." Read the book now to keep your life continually wide-open with possibilities.
- What's Book Club:
- Home Remedies
- by Angela Pneuman
- Harcourt, $14
Set in the Bible belt in Kentucky, Home Remedies offers a dazzling foray into an insular world of Christian fundamentalists and tangled family feelings. Mothers are pitted against daughters, and good intentions collide with plain old bad behavior. In the shocking title story, a mother's obsession with her ex's upcoming nuptials leads to her daughter's tonsillectomy at home. In "The Invitation," a girl begins to believe she's following in Mary's footsteps by being the second-ever pregnant virgin. And in "Holy Land," a young girl is abandoned by her father who believes he is now divine. As bracing as a mint julep and bristling with life, this collection of dark, funny stories explores the ways belief can buoy—or destroy.
