Having Faith: An Ecologist's Journey to Motherhood

My favorite pregnancy book for the beautiful writing style and informative value is Having Faith: An Ecologist's Journey to Motherhood. It is written by Sandra Steingraber and the first part is organized according to folk names for the monthly moons. It begins with the "old moon" and ends with the 9th "harvest moon." After which the book concludes with several chapters on the experience of new motherhood. Pregnancy books tend to be organized according to a nine month calendar which can be very repetitive for anyone who has read more than one so the labeling of each month with a different name was a nice change.
What is unique about Steingraber's writing is that she does not just detail the development of the fetus. Instead, she discusses development and how it can be negatively effected at each stage of fetal development. This is unusual as most books about pregnancy avoid topics that are not necessarily under a pregnant woman's control.

The driving force behind the book seems to be  not only to bring awareness to environmental pollution, but to change the plane of conversation about ecological degradation. Steingraber poses her question to her husband,
 '"Why is there no public conversation about environmental threats to pregnancy?"'
 and a more structural question 
'"Why does abstinence in the face of uncertainty apply only to individual behavior? Why doesn't it apply equally to industry or agriculture?"'

The answer given is that pregnancy is personal whereas industry and agriculture are public. To provide people with the information that Steingraber is giving is overwhelming. A pregnant woman can not do anything to change the state of the ecological environment so really it is better not to talk about it. Let women obsess about what they can control. It makes sense that our culture would encourage women to worry about how much coffee they are drinking. Many women already keep track of what they eat for dieting purposes. So making pregnancy and environment a personal issue prevents women (and people in general) from advocating for environmental protection and remediation.

This is one of the few pregnancy books which has a message that could be meaningful beyond pregnancy, and beyond one's first pregnancy. Because most books about pregnancy after one's first pregnancy are for me, beyond tedious.

Pets in America

Best Friends: The True Story of the World's Most Beloved Animal Sanctuary is a very upbeat account of how the sanctuary and organization began and expanded. Best Friends is now a large nonprofit which accepts volunteers and gives tours. Their motto is "kindness to animals builds a better world for all of us."

The book begins in 1982 when a large group of friends decided to pool resources and buy a 3,000 acre property in Utah. The purchasing of the property is the subject of part 1. A multipart animal sanctuary with a "Dogtown" and a "Cat World" as well as a "Piggy Paradise" and a "Horse haven" is described. The second part focuses on one of the founders - Faith Maloney - and her role in Best Friends. The lengthiest and final section, describes the financial struggle and growing pains that made Best Friends the functional nonprofit that it now is.

The author, Samantha Glen, manages to describe the personalities that started the sanctuary, the difficulties with growth, and the tales of animals reaching happier states of being with a straightforward narrative.

“The Snow Geese: A Story of Home”

by William Fiennes
This book will entertain those who enjoy travel memoirs, natural history-lite, and don't mind long forays into description and philosophy.

This nonfiction book was inspired by Paul Gallico's, The Snow Goose (1940). The author begins with a recollection of this story and then briefly describes his experience at the young age of 25 with a protracted illness. After returning to his family home to recover Fiennes decides to take a journey to trace the snow goose's spring migration. Starting in Austin, Texas, and tracing the flight of birds in rental cars, greyhound busses, and Canadian trains he arrives at Baffin Island where the birds have their summer mating and foraging grounds.

Describing the migratory pattern of snow geese could be a straightforward and dry narrative, but intertwined with the geese's journey is Fiennes's personal homeward journey propelled by the people he meets along the way and seemingly the philosophical musings sprinkled throughout the book. An example of the tangential flights of fancy which the author takes is that of homesickness. First drawing on those who first identified and defined homesickness as a malady, and then expanding with literary illustrations such as The Odyssey, Fiennes describes his feeling of homesickness. Unfortunately the connection between homesickness and seasonal bird migration is not made, nor can it be really.

The description of people and places in this book are detailed. Sometimes too much so. Since the people described are frequently peripheral to the story, fellow passengers on the bus or train, the story sometimes loses focus. The natural scenes in contrast are more apt and so the detail is not begrudged: “There were hills and swales in all directions, drawing away on the curve of the sphere, and clouds massing in the south, above the sea” (p. 240). The combination of natural description, and the description of all people encountered joined with the personal rumination of the author makes for an odd amalgamation of literary genres. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, it is an enjoyable book. It is the kind of book you can put down frequently and not regret the interruption.