Amidst the frenzy of shopping for baby, the boy wanted to be sure that I'd have plenty of books to read during the last four weeks before the baby's expected arrival. So we went into Whitcoulls and he told me to just pick out whatever takes my fancy - what an offer. I managed to restrain myself enough to just get four:
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (not a good choice for bedtime reading because it's really hard to put down and you'll end up getting no sleep at all)
We need to talk about Kevin by Lionel Shriver (it had a great write-up in the weekend paper and seems to be about woman coming to grips with the fact that her son has grown up to be teen mass murderer)
and two books by Chuck Palahniuk, who wrote Fight Club:
Diary (a 'coma' diary kept by a woman as her husband lies vege-like in hospital) and
Survivor (a story about the only member of a cult to survive a plane crash)
I'll also be spending time watching Buffy, Angel and X-Files DVDs, so I reckon that'll be enough to distract me from the extreme nesting behaviour I've been warned to expect.
8 comments:
None of those books are exactly light subject matter, are they? I enjoyed Lovely Bones, it's actually quite cheerful at times given the topic.
I read a review recently on Kevin, it's written by a woman who isn't a mother, and her main character has no maternal feelings for her son, so it caused quite a lot of debate.
That all sounds quite dark... I would advise you to be careful what you decide to read during labour. Between contractions I foolishly read an Alexander McCall Smith book in which a baby died and a child went missing. It was a very, very bad choice given the circumstances. Something light and cheery would have been much better.
Couldn't you find any happy books to read. These ones sound depressing..
For god's sake, don't read "Lullaby" by Chuck Palahniuk; it's a creepy story about parents singing a lullaby to their babies and then the babies die. The lullaby turns out to be an ancient African death curse and it's a tad difficult to get rid of it once you've heard it and it's in your head.
You read meaty books, Violet.
flying kiwi: I'd just finished a chicklit book by Sarah Kate Lynch and just couldn't bring myself to actually spend good money on another. I'd much rather read something interesting than something light'n'fluffy.
lbp: It's amazing enjoyable, considering it's about the falling-apart family of a young girl who's been raped, murdered and cut up into little pieces, isn't it?
mtnw:I thought Alexander McCall Smith wrote light detective novels. I haven't thought about what I might read during the labour itself. Perhaps I'll put on some Kath and Kim DVDs instead.
happyandblue2: I guess I'm just attracted to dark matter...
wicked: okay, I won't read Lullaby until well after the baby is old enough to not need lullabies. But I will read it though 'cos it does sound like a really good story. As for the 'meatiness' of my reading - it must be the intellectual-wannabe in me.
I enjoyed Survivor a lot more than Diary. Survivor is up there with my other two favourites of his: fight club and invisible monsters (you must give this one a go if you haven't already). I hope you enjoy it, it's classic Palahniuk. In fact, thinking about it makes me want to read it (and invisible monsters) again.
Let me know if you want me to bring you books - I've got lots you can borrow! I'm still making my way through the ones I borrowed for my last "confinement" (recovery from surgery) which was um 18 months ago!
It would be cool to visit before you pop, even though we won't have anything to talk about seeing as we read each other's blogs.
hazel: I haven't actually read any of his books yet - I just liked the movie version of Fight Club and read a good review of Diary. But it sounds like I have some good reading ahead of me.
Editter: Well, it'll be a challenge for both of us won't it? We can see if we finish each other's sentences or something. Don't let it put you off visiting me though. If we run out of things to talk about I can just put on a DVD!
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