Crib Sheet: A data-Driven Guide to Better, More Relaxed Parenting, from Birth to Preschool

Crib Sheet by Emily Oster

4/5. A how to decide book more than a how to book. E.g., what the data says about circumcision, potty training timing, safe sleep, etc. This book will clearly lay out which of the many supposed short and long term impacts of breastfeeding have actually been demonstrated to be true (a few, but not that many) but won't tell you how to breastfeed if you want to. I liked this and will keep it around for later references on sleep training and early education. And in general I found this to be a better book than her first.

Mostly, I'm just grateful for the section on the safety of light drinking while breastfeeding, because my god. I want a dark and stormy so bad right now, I could cry.

Expecting Better: Why the Conventional Wisdom on Pregnancy Is Wrong and What You Really Need to Know

Expecting Better

3/5. Economist gets annoyed with the pregnancy-industrial complex, reads a lot of studies to figure out what is real and what is bullshit. Great principle – there is a general movement towards evidence-based birth and parenting, and I'm for it – and she does have a good eye for spotting obvious biases and studies. But I have a bad taste in my mouth about this book. Yeah, she made a pretty significant analytical error regarding data around birth timing (fixed in a later edition, I believe), but eh, that happens. And yeah, this is the book I was reading last fall when I was pregnant, and the book I stopped reading while I was becoming unpregnant over several terrible weeks of waiting and shots and side effects and blood and unanswerable questions.

Mostly, I think it's that she's taken out all the obnoxious preachiness about the right way to pregnant, and replaced it with slightly less obnoxious preachiness about doing what is right for you. I mean, she's not wrong, but JFC, give it a rest.

A useful book though. I do recommend it to pregnant friends who want to cut through a lot of the bullshit and just have someone tell them, with an actual fucking reason, what foods it's not worth the risk to eat.

Dark Lord of Derkholm by Diana Wynne Jones

Dark Lord of Derkholm

3/5. A fantasy kingdom collectively decides it has had enough of the tours groups that come through from our world seeking adventure.

I mistakenly thought this would be zany, as it had all the hallmarks – jokes about geese! Animals of all sorts that can talk! Nonsensical prophecies! But actually it's a rather grim tale of exploitation and the costs of it. This fantasy land is forced to conform itself to tourist ideas, and in so doing it teaches many of its people, including those who hate the tours, to think of life and other people as their playthings. It's a hard lesson for a lot of them, including the putative good guys.

And I'm not sure this stuck the landing? It stuck a landing, I'll give it that. But I have a sinking suspicion that DWJ was not actually entirely aware of all the kind of exploitation she put in here. Like, the main guy has two human kids and five talking griffin kids, and it's all charming blended family, right? Except he's also bread a talking winged horse that, for absolutely no reason, is chattel and not a child even though I'm damned if I can see the difference.