Category — Book Club

The Barren Bitches Book Brigade turns one on November 29th. Our little girl has grown up. This year, we read 8 books and had almost 100 participants. Taking myself out of the running because I do every tour and Josh because I force him to do every tour, there was a tie for most tours between two blogs who each slogged through six books with the Barren Bitches.

The Book Slogger Award for 2006-2007 goes to…

Beaten But Not Bowed (Drowned Girl)
Southern Infertility (Samantha)

At 5 tours, an honourable mention goes to Weebles Wobblog (Lori).

Speech, speech!

If for some reason you missed it, sign up began last week for Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale. All are welcome to join along.

The overwhelming opinion of those that expressed their opinion was having some variety in the book choice; alternating between IF/pg loss/adoption books (fiction or non-fiction) and…well…non-IF/pg loss/adoption books. IF/pg loss is only half (or hopefully less) of who we are therefore it should be half of what we read. Or something like that. I love reading IF/pg loss/adoption books with you because we come from a common experience but have such divergent opinions and thoughts. So I don’t want to give that up. But there are some really cool books floating through the world right now that would be cool to read with you too. So… For the sake of clarity, I’ve named the two categories “salt” (IF/adoption/pg loss) and “pepper” (non-IF/adoption/pg loss).

It’s time to vote for the next books. First and foremost, weigh in now if you would like to read Inconceivable by Julia Indichova or if you’d rather skip this book and go to the first Pepper book. If you are planning to participate in Inconceivable, let me know now. If you’d put it back in the pool for a later read, let me know too. Weigh in.

For both the Salt and Pepper books, the voting works the same way. Even if you haven’t joined in the past, you should vote to make sure that we’re covering books in the future that you’d want to read. Here’s how it works:

• Read the blurbs below and decide which books sound potentially interesting to you.
• Leave a note in the comment section with the numbers of ALL of the books you are willing to read. List the number to the left of the book (you may not be able to participate in all the future tours, but choose books that you’d like to read if you have the time to join along).
• You may also vote two books off the island. Don’t use this if you feel neutrally towards a book, but if there is no chance you would ever join along if we were reading a particular book, vote it off the island. Think of it as Survivor for books.

Got it? Read the blurbs, leave a comment with the numbers of ALL the books you’ll read, and vote one or two off the list (if you wish).

SALT BOOKS (all of these books have some tie to IF/pg loss/adoption–trust me; it may be small, but it’s there)

1. The Empty Picture Frame (Jenna Nadeau): a book by one of our own in the IF/pg loss blogosphere. A panoramic view of IVF and the day-to-day life of someone struggling with infertility.

2. Gilead (Marilynne Robinson): Won the Pulitzer Prize. The narrator is an Iowan preacher writing a letter to his seven-year-old son who may never know his older father due to the preacher’s poor health. The letter serves as a way for this father to leave behind a sense of himself for his child.

3. The Yiddish Policeman’s Union (Michael Chabon): what if, instead of Israel, Jews were given a temporary settlement in Alaska after World War II? Chabon takes us to the possible ending of the settlement in a detective-murder-mystery-many-other-genres type novel.

4. The Confessions of Max Tivoli (Andrew Sean Greer): Max Tivoli was born as a 70-year-old man and he is aging backwards, working his way towards becoming a newborn. Due to this strange phenomenon, his life intersects others at various points, constantly appearing as a new person each time.

5. Embryo Culture (Beth Kohl): not only a first-hand account of treatments and the emotions of infertility, but a look at treatments as an industry, how fertility is handled in other cultures, and the far-reaching grasp of technology.

6. The Mistress’s Daughter (A.M. Homes): A.M. Homes’ memoir about her reunion with the mother who placed her for adoption many years earlier and the father who is absent even when present is truly a look at nature vs. nurture–where do our bloodlines end and environment begins?

7. The Baby Void (Judith Uyterlinde): reviewed here (suggested by Drowned Girl).

8. So Close (Tertia Albertyn): again, a book by one of our own, this memoir covers Tertia’s quest to become a mother via IVF as well as her son, Ben’s, life and death.

9. Four Minus Three (Guitelle H. Sandman): It’s a story of how this mother lived through the de
aths of her three sons, at different times and ages (suggested by Julia).

10. Coming to Term (Jon Cohen): a non-fiction book covering pregnancy loss (suggested by Ms. Planner).

11. Tick Tock (Dr. Lillian Schapiro): This is about a young gyno resident who finds herself on the receiving end of fertility treatment (suggested by Kristen).

12. Almost Perfect (Dianne Blacklock): After 7 years of in-vitro treatment, the couple begins to drift apart and the guy starts an affair with another woman, who winds up pregnant at the drop of a hat (suggested by Kristen).

13. Baby Trail (Sinead Moriarty): it begins with a woman who carefully plans going off the pill and getting pregnant soon after (sound familiar?) only to discover she can’t plan everything. It goes on through her foray into fertility treatment (suggested by Kristen).

14. To Full Term (Darci Klein): Through her research and her stick-to-it-iveness, she is able to overcome the odds and avoid a fourth loss. Lots of facts and statistics but more about her true life story (suggested by Kristen).

15. Digging to America (Anne Tyler): two families adopt children from Korea. The book does not focus on infertility or adoption as the centerpiece, but rather uses these as a springboard to exploring our notions of family and how we create ties with the ones we love (suggested by Samantha).

PEPPER BOOKS (no ties to IF/pg loss/adoption as far as I know)

16. Songs Without Words (Ann Packer): Liz has always been the friend who takes care of Sarabeth. But when the tables turn and Liz is the one in need of comfort, Sarabeth is too riddled with traumatic memories to step up and provide support.

17. Eat, Pray, Love (Elizabeth Gilbert): “At the age of thirty-one, Gilbert moved with her husband to the suburbs of New York and began trying to get pregnant, only to realize that she wanted neither a child nor a husband. Three years later, after a protracted divorce, she embarked on a yearlong trip of recovery, with three main stops: Rome, for pleasure (mostly gustatory, with a special emphasis on gelato); an ashram outside of Mumbai, for spiritual searching; and Bali, for “balancing.”–from The New Yorker.

18. Water for Elephants (Sara Gruen): “The novel, told in flashback by nonagenarian Jacob Jankowski, recounts the wild and wonderful period he spent with the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth, a traveling circus he joined during the Great Depression.”–from Publishers Weekly.

19. The Jane Austen Book Club (Karen Fowler): “Five women and one man meet periodically to discuss the work of (arguably) the greatest novelist in English. Six people, one for each Jane Austen title. It is California, a hot summer in the Central Valley early in the 21st century, and these are ordinary people, neither happy nor unhappy, but each of them hurting in different ways, all of them mixed up about love.”–from The Washington Post.

20. The Eyre Affair (Jasper Fforde): “Surreal and hilariously funny, this alternate history will appeal to lovers of zany genre work (think Douglas Adams) and lovers of classic literature alike. The scene: Great Britain circa 1985, but a Great Britain where literature has a prominent place in everyday life.”–from Publishers Weekly.

Okay, get voting. The booth is now open until November 15th (Thursday) at 10 p.m. EST. New books will be announced in the roundup on the 16th. And weigh in on whether you’re planning on joining for Inconceivable by Indichova (currently on the side bar as the next book) or if we should jump to the first “pepper” (non-IF) book on the list after voting. If you do not want to leave your vote in the comments section below, you can email me your vote.

Interview with Lolly Winston below this post. Occasional author participation is one of the cool things about the Barren Bitches…

It’s back and better than ever with a brand-new icon. The Barren Bitches (and Man-Pie) Book Brigade has started spinning; meaning, we’re now going to switch off between books that contain IF/adoption/pg loss and books that are a complete distraction–from chicklit to mysteries to good old-fashioned literature.

Here is the master list for the eighth tour of the Barren Bitches Book Brigade. What is the Barren Bitches Book Brigade? It’s a book club from the comfort of your own living room. The book club is conducted entirely online and open to anyone (male or female) in the infertility/pregnancy loss/assisted conception/adoption/parenting-after-infertility world (as well as any other related category I inadvertently left off the list). It is called a book tour because everyone reads the same book and then poses a question to the group. Participants choose a few questions to answer and then post their response on their blog. Readers can jump from blog to blog, commenting along the way. We read both fiction and non-fiction.

Anyone can jump aboard–it’s a book club where you can drop in and out as you wish and all in the community are welcome.

Book: The Handmaid’s Tale
Author: Margaret Atwood
Start Date: October 31
Question Due: December 6
Question List Sent Out: December 7
Post Dates: December 10-12th (perhaps also the 13th)
(need an explanation of how a book tour works? Click here to go to a list of posts on the past book tours.)

Barren Bitches Book Brigade List (click on any of the links below on December 10th to take you to a stop on this book tour. Jump from post to post to read a plethora of opinions and thoughts on The Handmaid’s Tale. I will keep adding to this list until 11 p.m. on December 6th. The list is currently open)

Stirrup Queens and Sperm Palace Jesters (Mel)
The Annex (Josh)
Twisted Ovaries (Vanessa/Helen)
Sticky Bean (Kristen)
Road Blocks and Rollercoasters (R & R)
Weebles Wobblog (Lori)
Conceiving is Believing (Conceiving is Believing)
Beaten But Not Bowed (Drowned Girl)
The Open Door (Deanna)
The Dunn Family (Erica)
Southern Infertility (Samantha)
We Are What We Repeatedly Do (Yodasmistress)
Mommy Someday? (Michelle)
That Was the Plan (Ms. Planner)
Our Box of Rain (K)
Clumsy Kisses (Rebecca)
Wonderful Thing (Anne)
Our Own Creation (AMS)
Desperate to Multiply (Portia P)
Slaying, Blogging, Whatever… (Delenn)
I Won’t Fear Love (Julia)
No Swimmers in the Tubes (Noswimmers)
Infertile Fantasies (Bea)
My Journey to Motherhood (Courtney)
Tired of Waiting (Holly)
The Infertile Long and Winding Road (Ms. Infertile)
One Year (Amanda)
Coming2Terms (Pamela Jeanne)
Wannabe RE (Rachel)
Infertility Sucks (S)
Confessions of a Paranoid Parent (Paranoid)
Egg Drop Post (Egg Drop)
The Road Less Travelled (Loribeth)
The Duchess (Duchess)

Not on the list and want to join? Drop me an email at thetowncriers@gmail.com. You can add yourself up until 11 p.m. on December 6th.

How the book tour works:

(1) leave a comment or send me an email (thetowncriers@gmail.com) saying that you’re interested in participating. I need your blog name, blog url, and email address.

(2) read The Handmaid’s Tale by December 6th (or at least enough of it in order to ask a question to the group).

(3) create a single question that would kick off a discussion (in other words, any question that leads to more than a “yes” or “no” answer where someone can express their opinion) and mail it to me on December 6th (or any time beforehand). I will send you a reminder email close to the date. Click here to see sample questions from tour #4.

(5) on December 7th, I will send you a list of possible questions. Everyone will choose 3 questions off the list and answer them in a blog entry. You will find out if you are posting on December 10th, 11th or 12th (you can choose).

(6) on December 10th, people will begin to post their entry. Each day, I will post a list of all the people putting up their entry that day so people can go around and read the entries and comment (start a discussion back and forth in the comments section). Reading the entries and commenting on the posts is the best part of the tour–by the end of the week, you should have a comment from every participant (and maybe even a few new permanent blog readers).

After an early email exchange with Lolly Winston, I used the term “lovely” to describe her to Josh. Hence why I laughed so hard when I got to page 171 and read this paragraph:

“You’re lovely,” Noah whispers, lifting his head to kiss her on the mouth. This kiss is deeper and warmer and saltier. But the word lovely spins in Elinor’s head. Isn’t lovely just short of pretty? Three rungs below beautiful? Grandmothers are lovely. She should just relax and ulp–“

When Noah said it to Elinor, he meant it as the highest compliment, that amalgamation of delightful and enjoyable and beautiful. While I can’t speak to Lolly’s physical beauty via email, I can tell you that she is just as warm and delightful and fun as her writing. She is, in a nutshell, lovely. Which is to say that even emailing with her a few times you realize that she could be a heroine in one of her own stories–kind to the bone and thoughtful and smart.

Lolly excels at writing female characters who are likable, intelligent, and always find the right words at the right time. While they find themselves in unenviable situations–the loss of a husband or infertility–they are the best friends every woman needs to have. The ones who would show up at your doorstep with ice cream and know how to walk that fine line between unconditional support and tough love.

For the seventh tour of the Barren Bitches Book Brigade, we read her latest novel, Happiness Sold Separately. Elinor, immobilized by infertility and failed treatments, discovers that her husband is having an affair with a personal trainer. Ted loves his wife, but infertility has driven a wedge between them and he doesn’t know how to connect with her anymore. Throw in a 10-year-old boy, an alcoholic ex-lover, your friendly neighbourhood cleaning man, and a tree doctor and you have the colliding of universes and the aftermath of those connections.

Participants in the book tours can ask the author their questions as they read. A very public thank you to Lolly for delving deeper into the world of Elinor and Ted. Here’s what she had to say about her book, writing, and infertility in general:

I was both captivated and unnerved by the character of Ted and wondered how you came up with his story, emotions, behaviors and motivations. How did you research him? Is he based on a single personality or is he an amalgamation of several male personalities and how they might of reacted to personal crisis?

I just wanted to redeem Ted. I wanted him to be lovable, despite being flawed and making big mistakes. The men in my writer’s group made suggestions whenever his thinking or dialogue didn’t ring true to them. Also, I have a friend whose husband is a podiatrist. He’s very funny and warm and smart and I asked him questions about his job for Ted (a podiatrist).

Did you set out to write a novel with infertility as a theme or did it evolve that way? Did you mean to “educate” your mainstream readership in any way through your deft weaving of the pervasiveness of infertility and the lasting impact it has on couples?

I just wanted to write about a couple struggling, and infertility happened to be something that I was familiar with. I do think it was under-covered in the media until the last five years or so, perhaps. I was glad when infertility became more talked about in magazines and on TV shows, because I think my age group was led to believe we could easily have babies in our forties and that’s not statistically the case.

What is/was your personal experience with infertility or pregnancy loss? If you had no personal experience, what tools did you use to craft an accurate portrayal of the effects of infertility on a woman and her marriage?

Like Elinor, I’m unable to have children and did a number of infertility treatments. I started trying to get pregnant on my own at 37. At 38, my OB sent me to the in vitro clinic. I did three IUIs with shots and two IVFs, with no luck. The first IUI worked, but I lost the pregnancy at 12 weeks—after seeing the heartbeat twice. Bah! I think it was probably the worst thing that’s ever happened to me, after my dad dying when I was in my twenties. Fortunately, my OB ordered a pathology report and we learned that the pregnancy had been a trisomie that never would have made it to term. This is the case with almost all miscarriages. But you don’t know that. I started to drink a little tea once I was nearly in the second trimester, and I honestly thought I’d killed my poor baby with Earl Grey. After the pathology report, I had another test and learned that I have this rare chromosomal anomaly called a “balanced translocation.” The doctors said this diminished my chances even more, but nobody seemed to know by how much. So I eventually called it quits.

I actually went through my own dang medical files to make sure the chronology of events were accurate for the book. I had already done so much research while going through the treatments that I didn’t have to do any more, really. (I’m sure you guys have bought all the books too.) I just had to dip back into that dark personal experience. But I do know about a dozen women for whom in vitro has worked. So I’m very optimistic for others. Sometimes, like anything in life, it can just be a matter of persistence.

Also, I enjoyed the steady pacing of the novel. What is your strategy for maintaining a good pace in your novel?

I think structure helps maintain the pace of a novel. I had a great writing teacher who said that good stories begin when the characters are on the cusp of change. I like to structure things so that they begin with the characters right in the thick of things, with action at the opening. Then of course we need some back story to establish the status quo, and then conflict, with the story moving forward, followed by climax and a resolution, although without a too-tidy bow. This sort of structure is as old as Aristotle. This book was a bit of a challenge for me because I wanted to tell it from multiple points of view, yet not have events overlap, and keep things moving forward. At one point I pages spread across my office floor because the big picture was making my head hurt.

Can you explain the meaning behind the title? I know what it means to me, but I’d like to know what it meant to you.

Happiness Sold Separately is a play on “batteries sold separately.” To me the title just means that love and marriage don’t necessarily guarantee happiness. Couples get married at the end of many stories—such as at the end of Jane Austen’s novels. You imagine that they live happily ever after. But of course we know there are all sorts of sad, difficult events in life that make us unhappy, even after people are married.

I’m assuming you went through treatments yourself—do you think being a writer and having that flexible schedule (not having to go to an office, for example) was helpful when undergoing treatments or did work still get in the way of treatments (okay—or treatments get in the way of work?)?

Working at home when you’re having any sort of health issue is a welcome luxury, I think. It gives you flexibility and you can work in your sweats and lie down for a while if you’re not feeling well. I was doing rounds of in vitro while I was writing my first novel, Good Grief. In vitro was such a d
rag that it made me look forward to my work—the book felt like a refuge. Also, the novel was something I could control, while the outcome of the in vitro, and the roller coaster of news we’d get at the 8 zillion doctor’s appointments, was completely out of my control, and thus driving me crazy. Because I was writing a book with the theme of grief, I think I just poured the grief that goes along with failed treatments and lost pregnancies into the story.

New List Today AND a question at the bottom:

Once again, welcome to the seventh tour of the Barren Bitches Book Brigade–a book club from the comfort of your own living room. Grab a cup of coffee and start clicking away at the links below.

Just to explain, this book club is entirely online and open to anyone (male or female) in the infertility/pregnancy loss/assisted conception/adoption/parenting-after-infertility world (as well as any other related category I inadvertently left off the list). It is called a book tour because everyone reads the same book and then poses a question to the group. Participants choose a few questions to answer and then post their response on their blog. Readers can jump from blog to blog, commenting along the way.

Book: Happiness Sold Separately
Author: Lolly Winston
Start Date: September 19
Post Dates: October 29th and 30th
(need an explanation of how a book tour works? Click here to go to a list of posts on the past book tours.)

Barren Bitches Book Brigade List (click on any of the links below to take you to a stop on this book tour. Jump from post to post to read a plethora of opinions and thoughts on Happiness Sold Separately).

Group B:

That Was The Plan (Ms. Planner)
A Little Sweetness (Meghan)
All Things Deb (Deb)
Waiting for…? (Amy)
Road Blocks and Rollercoasters (R&R)
Where is My Happiness? (Bean)
The Open Door (Deanna)
Fatty Pants (Fattypants)
Outlandish Notions (Sharah)
The Infertile Long and Winding Road (Ms. Infertile)
No Swimmers in the Tubes… (Noswimmers)
Fertilize Me (Farah)
Baby Steps to Baby Shoes (Baby Steps)
Desperate to Multiply (Portia P)

Even if you haven’t read Happiness Sold Separately, you can still add your own thoughts on the blog tour or react to someone else’s critique.

Like the idea of being in a book club without leaving your living room? The next book for book tour #8 is The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. Even if you read this book a long time ago, I promise reading it again with a book club will make you see it in an entirely new light.

The Details: Tour #8 will start October 31st (spooky!). Participants will read The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. On Tuesday, December 6th everyone will send one question based on the book (to get a sense of questions, click here to see the questions sent for book tour #2) to thetowncriers@gmail.com. I will compile the questions into lists that will be emailed out to you on December 7th. Everyone will choose 3 questions from the list and answer them on their own blog on December 10th–12th (we will break up into two or three smaller groups and you can choose which day works best for you when the date gets closer). Each day of the tour, I’ll also post a master list and people can jump from blog to blog, reading and commenting on the book tour.

If you would like to sign up to participate in book tour #8, leave a comment below or send me an email at thetowncriers@gmail.com. I need the title and a link to your blog as well as an email address where you’d like the two or three book club emails sent. If a spouse wants to participate too and he/she doesn’t have their own blog, have them set up a blog solely for book tours (as we did with the Annex) and send me a link to that blog. And if you’re a reader without a blog, now is a great time to set up a space for yourself on Blogger. People will be able to find brand-spanking-new blogs because they will be on the book tour’s participant list. Want to participate but live overseas and want to order many books at once in order to save on shipping? The next few tours are always listed on my side bar under the book icon and we’ll be voting soon on the book tours for the winter. Happy reading.

NEW BOOK CLUB IDEA:

You know the idea of spinning plates? I’ve been mulling over the idea of spinning books. As I’m putting together the voting list for the next tours, I’m thinking of all these great books that are the opposite of an IF/pg loss book. The ones that give you an escape from everything that is going on. And beyond that, I actually do read books that are not infertility-related (gasp!). Jasper Fforde, chicklit, random Booksense bestsellers. I want to read Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, but I don’t want to read it in a vacuum. And I love you guys. And the Barren Bitches Book Brigade rocks. What do you think of a spinning book group? Each tour would become eight weeks long, but the two books would spin at the same time. You could drop in for either one or both. So every four weeks (as opposed to every six weeks), there would be a new tour and it would switch off whether it was an angel (non-IF book) or devil (IF-book) tour. If it gets too crowded, I’ll start a spin-off site where we can discuss/run both tours. Yes? No? Maybe so?

Welcome to the seventh tour of the Barren Bitches Book Brigade–a book club from the comfort of your own living room. Grab a cup of coffee and start clicking away at the links below.

Just to explain, this book club is entirely online and open to anyone (male or female) in the infertility/pregnancy loss/assisted conception/adoption/parenting-after-infertility world (as well as any other related category I inadvertently left off the list). It is called a book tour because everyone reads the same book and then poses a question to the group. Participants choose a few questions to answer and then post their response on their blog. Readers can jump from blog to blog, commenting along the way.

Book: Happiness Sold Separately
Author: Lolly Winston
Start Date: September 19
Post Dates: October 29th and 30th
(need an explanation of how a book tour works? Click here to go to a list of posts on the past book tours.)

Barren Bitches Book Brigade List (click on any of the links below to take you to a stop on this book tour. Jump from post to post to read a plethora of opinions and thoughts on Happiness Sold Separately. We’ve broken down the current tour into two groups. A new list will be posted tomorrow).

Group A:

Stirrup Queens (Mel)–my post is below this one
Southern Infertility (Samantha)
Beaten But Not Bowed (Drowned Girl)
Sticky Bean (Kristen)
Weebles Wobblog (Lori)
The Dunn Family (Erica)
Candy’s Land (Candy)
Mommy Someday? (Michelle)
Blood Signs (Wordgirl)
Precious Little (Carrie)
Coming2Terms (Pamela Jeanne)
Conceiving is Believing (CiB)

Even if you haven’t read Happiness Sold Separately, you can still add your own thoughts on the blog tour or react to someone else’s critique.

Like the idea of being in a book club without leaving your living room? The next book for book tour #8 is The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. Even if you read this book a long time ago, I promise reading it again with a book club will make you see it in an entirely new light.

The Details: Tour #8 will start October 31st (spooky!). Participants will read The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. On Tuesday, December 6th everyone will send one question based on the book (to get a sense of questions, click here to see the questions sent for book tour #2) to thetowncriers@gmail.com. I will compile the questions into lists that will be emailed out to you on December 7th. Everyone will choose 3 questions from the list and answer them on their own blog on December 10th–12th (we will break up into two or three smaller groups and you can choose which day works best for you when the date gets closer). Each day of the tour, I’ll also post a master list and people can jump from blog to blog, reading and commenting on the book tour.

If you would like to sign up to participate in book tour #8, leave a comment below or send me an email at thetowncriers@gmail.com. I need the title and a link to your blog as well as an email address where you’d like the two or three book club emails sent. If a spouse wants to participate too and he/she doesn’t have their own blog, have them set up a blog solely for book tours (as we did with the Annex) and send me a link to that blog. And if you’re a reader without a blog, now is a great time to set up a space for yourself on Blogger. People will be able to find brand-spanking-new blogs because they will be on the book tour’s participant list. Want to participate but live overseas and want to order many books at once in order to save on shipping? The next few tours are always listed on my side bar under the book icon and we’ll be voting soon on the book tours for the winter. Happy reading.