Baby Kai is on the outside! We are now a family of four. Baby Kai is warm, covered in his fine fuzz, mostly quiet. He sleeps and nurses and poops and makes hilarious grumpy faces. Baby Naomi is now Big Sister Naomi, also often Cinderella, or Swan King, or Veranda Santa, or a ballerina, or an Irish dancer, or a dinosaur. She likes to hold Kai and help change his diaper and stroke his soft head, and she also likes it when we put him down in his cradle and just play with her. They are both so magnificent.

Kai likes to nurse for hour-long stretches in the dark middle hours of the night, and then also throughout the day, so I’ve been getting lots of reading time. Thank you, Libby (the library ebook app. The best.) Here is the latest installment of what I’ve read since last post (June 24). Once again, they’re listed in the order in which I read them (as best as I can recall.)

(Green titles – I recommend! Check it out! Purple titles – didn’t finish/really didn’t like. Black – choose your own adventure!)

1. Airframe, by Michael Crichton (F) – This is the last book I finished before Kai was born. I got on a bit of a Michael Crichton kick suddenly for a bit here. I tend to like his very detail oriented, somewhat science-y thriller genre. Of the three I read during this week and a half, this was my favorite, and the least blatantly sexist. I learned a lot about airplane construction and maintenance!
2. A Walk in the Park, by Kevin Fedarko (NF) – Read most of this in a hospital bed amongst contractions; finished it while holding newborn Baby Kai! About his through-hike (in sections) of the Grand Canyon, mingled with an ecological and indigenous history of the canyon. It was well-written and interesting and often beautiful. (I also really loved Fedarko’s first book, The Emerald Mile, and highly recommend it.)
3. Sandwich, by Catherine Newman (F) – This book is on a lot of “best beach reads of 2024” type lists right now, and I agree! Very warm and feel-good-y and funny. Really overall it was an excellent book to read with a new baby. (But CW: Pregnancy loss.)
4. The Great Train Robbery, by Michael Crichton (F) – The Crichton kick continues! This one of his is more historical and less science-y, but still fun…but a touch more sexist (and racist) than Airframe.
5. The God of the Woods, by Liz Moore (F) – A beautifully written “literary mystery” about summer camp, forest survival, family. A child dies, and that was really hard to read about in my hormonal postpartum state. And, I still liked this one. (Also loved Moore’s Long Bright River. So did Obama!)
6. Sphere, by Michael Crichton (F) – This one really takes the cake for sexism and racism, enough that I actively endorse skipping it. Crichton kick ended.
7. Shutter Island, by Dennis Lehane (F) – I’m not making this one “purple” because you might like it, it was pretty well-written, it’s some kind of classic (though I’ve never seen the movie) but I did NOT like it. More freaking dead children and too spooky for 3 am reading in the dark while Kai nursed. I skim-read the last half with my eyes averted and then kind of skipped to the end. Yech.
8. Georgie, All Along, by Kate Clayborn (F) – Read the first quarter or so and then stopped. A predictable, unfunny, awkwardly written romance. Sorry, Clayborn!
9. The Mythmakers, by Keziah Weir (F) – One of many novels about an aspiring young novelist in NYC. Write what you know! There were some sections I found tedious but mostly I liked it – very “character driven” I think you’d say.
10. Rebecca, Not Becky, by Christine Platt and Catherine Wiggington Greene (F) – Co-written by a Black woman and a white woman, with alternating chapters from different POV about a Black family moving to a very wealthy, otherwise all-white neighborhood. It was okay.
11. Wanderlust, by Elle Everhart (F) – A romance novel about travel and writing. Sweet and…fine.
12. Crazy Rich Asians, by Kevin Kwan (F) – Super funny and fascinating. I saw the movie years ago but first time reading the book.
13. Love Your Life, by Sophie Kinsella (F) – Another romance novel, but plays with some of the cliches a little. I really didn’t like the main character, but found her pretty interesting to read about. Sometimes very genuinely funny.
14. Birnam Wood, by Eleanor Catton (F) – Reeeeead this and let’s talk about it! Here is what the NYT reviewer said about it: “…a big book, a sophisticated page-turner, that does something improbable: It filters anarchist, monkey-wrenching environmental politics, a generational (anti-baby boomer) cri de coeur and a downhill-racing plot through a Stoppardian sense of humor. The result is thrilling. Birnam Wood nearly made me laugh with pleasure.” Huge thanks to Niko for recommending it.
15. The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt (F) – Man, she’s so so good at both writing beautiful sentences and creating page-turner-y plots. This book is Very Long (almost 800 pages; the thing with ebooks is that you have no idea of the heft of something and all of a sudden you realize you’re only 30% through according to the little app) and honestly…maybe could have been shorter? But I enjoyed it all the way through.

Any recommendations? Leave a comment! 😘