April Reading Recap

A slow reading month but all good books.

God, Improv, and the Art of Living by MaryAnn McKibben Dana - I have followed MaryAnn McKibben Dana for a long time, since reading her first book, and I hadn’t read this before but I have seen a lot of her writing about improv and faith. I read the book because I was working on a sermon that tied those ideas together. She is a wonderfully smart and thoughtful and funny writer. I would like to get my hands on her new book, Better Than Normal: Virtues for an Off-Script Life that came out last month. Recommended for people who are intrigued by the idea of considering faith through a lens of improv comedy.

Heartwood by Amity Gaige - I tell you what, I love a book with a tough lady game warden. I agree it started a little slow but I didn’t mind. It had more of a (mild) thriller aspect than I had thought, but wasn’t too scary. Mostly a character study with a bit of a mystery. Loved it.

To the Moon and Back by Eliana Ramage - After being glued to the Artemis astronauts I needed something to read, and this unexpectedly hit the spot! It follows a Cherokee girl named Steph through her teenage years and into her adulthood as she strives to understand where she comes from and who she is going to be in the world. Also, I kept telling everyone it was my lesbian Cherokee astronaut book. A great read!

Love Like a Mother by Elizabeth Berget - Comes out tomorrow! The book explores theological ideas about a mother’s love and how we can see God in mothering. As a mom who had fairly uncomplicated fertility, birthing, and nursing stories, I thought much of this resonated. I think it will resonate with a lot of people, but there are some people who will feel understandably left out of this particular portrayal of motherhood. The first third of this book is focused on the physical aspects of birthing. These images, along with images of a nursing God, have been very important to my faith as a mom. However, I would not hand this book to a foster mom or an adoptive mom. There is somewhat of a mention of infertility in the book, and there are references throughout to fostering and adoption through foster care, but no real engagement with other adoption discussions. I also wish the author had the confidence to offer Mother God as a metaphor without having to qualify it as much as she did in the beginning of the book. The author mentions that her oldest was about 13 at the time of writing the book. My kid is slightly older, and I think my role as a mother has shifted in huge ways in two or three teenage years. There is a lot of mothering that was unexplored in this book, like aunts, church moms, older kids, and parenting adults, but it would be a good Mother’s Day gift for moms of little kids who are in the trenches (and also give them the gift of time to read it).

Birth Vibes by Jen Hamilton - Also comes out tomorrow! You might know Jen from tik tok. Those of us in this part of NC know her as a local - she works as a labor and delivery nurse in the hospital where I gave birth (though I have never met her). I am sure she could write a book about any number of very funny things, but we are lucky she has written a book with everything you need to know about giving birth. She writes with compassion, humor, and sincerity about things I wish I’d known and explains things I (still) did not know to ask. Her goal is to empower you with information so you can understand what is happening and make informed choices even if/when things don’t go according to plan. Basically every review says “everyone giving birth needs this book” and that is because everyone giving birth needs this book. I haven’t read anything like it. I am certainly not having another baby but I couldn’t put it down. It is really really funny and also full of information. Get it for all the pregnant folks in your life!

I am in a little bit of a reading crisis because I have not yet picked the next book for church book club. Has your book club read anything recently that you recommend? I have been working on the summer read for church, and I think we nailed that one down. It’s been a little hard to balance reading for pleasure and reading for work. I was grateful for the two novels I read this month and how much they helped!

I am hoping to read The Girls Who Grew Big by Leila Mottley before I need to return it to the library, and I have a list of possible book club contenders that I need to examine more deeply. I’m also excited to buy Mac Barnett’s new book when it comes out tomorrow!

What have you been reading this month?