{"id":4354,"date":"2015-05-01T08:12:00","date_gmt":"2015-05-01T12:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=4354"},"modified":"2015-05-21T07:02:24","modified_gmt":"2015-05-21T11:02:24","slug":"11-novels-for-expectant-parents-maybe-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=4354","title":{"rendered":"11 Novels for Expectant Parents? Maybe Not"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"pregnant

(photo: Ed Yourdan, Creative Commons license)<\/p><\/div>\n

Electric Literature presents a compendium of 11 books<\/a> expectant parents might want to read instead of parenting books. Compiler Allison Gibson hit on this idea because the books she read while pregnant were \u201cboth too specific to prepare me for what I ended up encountering and too generalized to grasp before I even had a look at my own son\u2019s face.\u201d I had one of those very specific books, but I found it reassuring. There were answers. Somewhere.<\/em> If I could find the book under piles of laundry, toppling stacks of diapers, and a storage unit\u2019s worth of babygear.<\/p>\n

Gibson quotes award-winning writer Marilynne Robinson\u2019s view that fiction is \u201can exercise in the capacity for imaginative love, or sympathy, or identification,\u201d which does make fiction seem both appropriate and vital preparation for greeting that diminutive stranger about to take over your life, 24\/7\/365\/forever.<\/p>\n

Here are some of the books that she recommends and why:<\/p>\n