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Amy Scribner

NonfictionParenting

Finding your own parenting style

Feature by Amy Scribner

There’s no one way to successfully parent (if only there were—this whole parenting thing would be so much easier!). While the best advice is probably to follow your instincts and cut yourself a break when you make a mistake, these new books offer fresh, sometimes funny insight into the world’s hardest job.

I’m not going to lie—I fully expected to dislike The Brainy Bunch. Kip and Mona Lisa Harding have gotten a lot of media attention for homeschooling their children and getting six of their 10 kids into college by the age of 12. What’s the rush? I wondered indignantly. Why can’t you let your kids be kids?

But the Hardings’ story is very much one of putting love and family first. They are not pushing their children to overachieve—they are helping them find their own unique potential. The book is filled with useful tips, sample schedules and fun projects—and even sections written by some of the children themselves. (Chapters also start with Bible verses, so if that’s not your thing, this may not be the book for you.)

“Our children were not joining fraternities and sororities or going to the weekend parties,” they write. “Instead, they were actually spending more time with our family than if they had been attending a public high school. Our kids actually get to experience more of their childhood because they have more freedom in their education and lives.”

HILARITY ENSUES
In How Not to Calm a Child on a Plane, TV writer Johanna Stein offers a deliciously funny reminder that parenting doesn’t have to be so serious. To wit: When her child was born, Stein took the placenta home from the hospital in order to play a joke on her best friend. That story alone is worth the price of the book.

Chapter 17, written in all caps, enumerates the many ways her preschooler has insulted her. Favorites include, “Mommy, your tummy looks like a bagel” and “Clara and I were playing in your underpants. They fit both of us at the same time, ha ha!”

Stein is definitely not trying to replicate What to Expect When You’re Expecting. If anything, she is the anti-parenting guide, subtly using funny anecdotes to demonstrate that we can have fun with childrearing. She might not bestow nursing tips or ideas for planning the perfect playdate, but she will make you laugh—a lot—about the sweetness, messiness and absurdity of parenting.

SLEEP TIGHT
La Leche League International’s newest book on how to breastfeed and still get some shut-eye is chock-full of advice and information. Maybe too chock-full? At more than 500 pages, one could argue that Sweet Sleep might be a little overwhelming for a sleep-deprived new parent. But the editors smartly break the information into digestible bits organized by topics and age ranges. And for any parent desperate for an uninterrupted few hours of sleep, the advice is worth the read.

Sweet Sleep includes extensive information on creating a safe sleep space, helping children learn to sleep on their own and defusing criticism of your family’s choices. La Leche League sometimes is (undeservedly) portrayed as an extremist group, but this book is nothing but supportive of whatever your choices are about nursing and sleeping.

NURTURING YOUNG READERS
Born Reading: Bringing Up Bookworms in a Digital Age, by former Mediabistro editor Jason Boog, is a book that couldn’t have been written even five years ago. Used to be, you grabbed a copy of Pat the Bunny and maybe a Dr. Seuss, and you were good to go for several years.

But new research and technology have made the seemingly simple topic of reading with your child much more complicated. Who hasn’t watched a toddler master an iPad faster than her parents? How can a print book ever compete with the newest Disney app?

But we now know just how important reading from birth is—it can help build vocabulary and strengthen adult-child bonds. Boog offers straightforward advice—based on his research and conversations with experts, and on his own parenting experience—about how to make the most of time spent reading with your child. Sing, ask questions, use the book to springboard to conversations about bigger issues. Boog shows you how in this fascinating and user-friendly guide to helping develop a lifelong reader.

TAKING CHARGE
Keep Calm and Parent On, by child development specialist Emma Jenner, is a no-nonsense guidebook for even the most unsure parents among us. Her message, delivered in a brisk, British, stiff-upper-lip manner, is that saying no to your kids doesn’t mean you don’t love them. In fact, it might be just what they need to hear.

“You do not have to cater to your children and be an on-demand cook,” Jenner writes in a chapter called—of course—A Tale of Porridge and Pudding. “Your family kitchen is not a restaurant, so don’t let your children treat it like one!”

Jenner has appeared on TLC’s “Take Home Nanny,” and her years of experience are apparent on every page of this wonderfully practical tome. Like a British nanny, Keep Calm and Parent On is gentle but firm, a reminder to this generation of parents that we really are in charge of our children, not the other way around. With Jenner’s advice in your pocket, you will feel equipped to parent on, indeed.

 

This article was originally published in the August 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

There’s no one way to successfully parent (if only there were—this whole parenting thing would be so much easier!). While the best advice is probably to follow your instincts and cut yourself a break when you make a mistake, these new books offer fresh, sometimes funny insight into the world’s hardest job.
NonfictionParenting

Advice for parents: back off

Feature by Amy Scribner

The era of helicopter parenting is officially over, if this new crop of parenting books is any indication. Gone are the days of tracking your child’s every move and fighting her every battle.The focus now is on preparing children for the real world by letting them venture out and even—gasp!—make mistakes. 

In How to Raise an Adult, former Stanford dean Julie Lythcott-Haims argues that we are so focused on our children that “what they eat, how they dress, what activities they pursue [and] what they achieve have be- come a reflection of us. Of how we see ourselves. Like their life is our accomplishment. Like their failures are our fault.”

In her years as Dean of Fresh- men at Stanford, Lythcott-Haims watched as parents encroached on their children’s collegiate pursuits, showing up for social events and contacting professors. She once saw a woman in her mid-20s walking around campus, looking for the engineering building. How did Lythcott-Haims know? Because the mother of this Ph.D. candidate was doing all the talking. It’s a wonder parents haven’t moved into the dorms.

How to Raise an Adult is a bit of a manifesto, and I mean that in the best way. Lay off the Adderall, stop fretting that the Ivy League is the only route to success and let your children have unstructured time to dream, play and do nothing. Raising an adult, Lythcott-Haims posits, means letting go.

UN-ENTITLERS
With chapters titled “They’re Not Helpless” and “Overcontrol,” parenting expert Amy McCready makes clear starting with the table of contents that she finds overparenting to be underwhelm- ing. In The Me, Me, Me Epidemic, McCready, who founded Positive Parenting Solu- tions, dishes out advice in a crisply no-nonsense tone on everything from peer-pressure-proofing your kids to navigating social media.

“If we dish out empty praise and lavish rewards for the type of behavior that should be expected (such as not pitching a fit because we won’t buy them a new action figure or not making rude noises in a restaurant) we’re writing a recipe for an entitled child, one who thinks he takes ‘special to a whole new level,’ ” McCready writes. McCready offers tools she calls “Un-Entitlers,” which are like vitamins to instill capability in children. My favorite is Mind, Body and Soul Time, in which parents give an uninterrupted 10 or 20 minutes to their children and let the kids choose what they do together. It’s simple and surprisingly effective.

LIVE AND LEARN
I have a son entering middle school this fall, so The Gift of Failure by Jessica Lahey was a gift to me. With common-sense advice on how to stand back and let your children learn through their mistakes—including an entire chapter on navigating the hormone-drenched middle school years—this book is one of my new favorite parenting manuals.

Lahey is a warm, engaging writer who spent years in the trenches as a middle school Latin and English teacher. She advocates a lovingly hands-off approach that instills confidence from an early age.

“As adults we all have our own bullies to deal with: mean bosses, vicious enemies, and jealous peers,” she writes. “How your kid learns to deal with those people in their childhood, when failure means a day or two of hurt feelings or social exclusion, can mean the difference between a thin skin and a strong sense of self.”

TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS
Forget gimmicky baby toys—all your child really needs is you. Vanderbilt University child development researcher Stephen Camarata offers an antidote to all the products marketed to guilt-rid- den parents in The Intuitive Parent. “What does a baby really need to know?” he writes. “That his parents love him, will take care of him, and will encourage him and empower him to learn. This does not require special videos, special toys, special DVDs or computer programs.”

Camarata starts with a fascinating section on the science behind child development. (How many au- thors can make something called brain plasticity interesting? Very few.) Then it gets even better, as Camarata lays out his case for why parents need not obsess over every developmental milestone, instead focusing on what he calls intuitive parenting, simply enjoying your child and reacting to his activities. The father of seven children, Camarata blends research and experience to create a parenting book that lets parents off the hook.

SUCCESSFUL STARTERS
The co-authors of Raising Can-Do Kids are perhaps an unlikely duo—Jen Prosek is a public relations executive and Richard Rende is a developmental psychologist. But the partnership works. Raising Can-Do Kids is both interesting and actionable, written from the points of view of someone who under- stands development and someone else who understands what skills it takes to make a great entrepreneur. Together, they identify seven traits that entrepreneurs need (curiosity and risk-taking are among them) and show parents how to cultivate these qualities in their children.

Perhaps most intriguing is their exploration of snowplow parents, who are apparently helicopter parents on steroids. As they write, snowplow parents “don’t just try to control a child’s environment and experiences but overtly eliminate perceived obstacles in a child’s path. Requesting that a specific child not be in your child’s class is one thing; demanding to review the class roster is quite another.” Makes that Stanford mom seem almost reasonable, doesn’t it? 

RELATED CONTENT: Read a Q&A with Julie Lythcott-Haims, author of How To Raise an Adult.

This article was originally published in the August 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

The era of helicopter parenting is officially over, if this new crop of parenting books is any indication. Gone are the days of tracking your child’s every move and fighting her every battle.The focus now is on preparing children for the real world by letting them venture out and even—gasp!—make mistakes.
FictionDebut Fiction

Two delectable debuts

Feature by Amy Scribner

“Food is our common ground, a universal experience,” said James Beard, and these two delicious new books are cases in point. 

Both feature a protagonist chasing a food dream, one in the Big Apple and the other all over Europe. And both have enough mouthwatering descriptions of meals to send you rummaging for something to munch on.

The fun, frothy Food Whore has traces of The Devil Wears Prada, except instead of a cruel magazine editor, the villain is the entire Manhattan restaurant scene. Tia Monroe dreams of writing cookbooks and enrolls in the prestigious New York University culinary masters program. But when her bid for an internship with a famous cookbook author is botched, Tia begins ghostwriting columns for weaselly New York Times restaurant critic Michael Saltz, who has lost his ability to taste food. 

It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement: Saltz gets to keep his coveted job at the Times, and Tia gets the thrill of seeing her words in print, albeit under someone else’s byline. She also gets access to Saltz’s private account at Bergdorf Goodman. In no time, down-to-earth Tia becomes a fashionista who breaks up with her steadfast boyfriend and starts dating one of New York’s hottest chefs. But Tia quickly learns how brutal it is in the culinary world, where restaurants will do anything to get a good review. 

Food Whore is the first novel from Jessica Tom, a Brooklyn writer who graduated from Yale University and, much like Tia, wrote restaurant reviews for the school paper. Tom nails the dog-eat-dog restaurant world, whipping up a remarkably entertaining debut.

In Vintage, Bruno Tannenbaum is on the other side of his career from young Tia. After years as a food columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, Bruno is sliding into obsolescence. He once wrote a little-known novel he was proud of and a gimmicky best-selling cookbook he was less proud of. But now, he’s sleeping on his mother’s couch (wife kicked him out for cheating), unemployed (newspaper let him go) and drinking too much (see previous). When a Russian restaurateur enlists Bruno’s help in solving the mystery of a lost vintage of French wine, Bruno senses a story that could revive his career and prove to his family that he still has what it takes to provide for them.

Vintage is a whirlwind of a book, with the charmingly rough Bruno spinning through France, Moldova and Russia as he chases down the wine, which he believes was stolen by the Nazis during World War II. He finds romance with a French winemaker, intrigue in a Russian prison and answers where he never expected them. 

Author David Baker is the director of the documentary American Wine Story, and he delivers a walloping good time in Vintage. While the book is clever and funny, it’s also a tender meditation on the power of food and wine to heal even the sorest of hearts. Bruno is a character for the ages, a passionate foodie who finds his own winding road to redemption.

 

This article was originally published in the November 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

“Food is our common ground, a universal experience,” said James Beard, and these two delicious new books are cases in point.
Fiction

Till disaster do us part

Feature by Amy Scribner

Marriage is a challenge under the best of circumstances—devoting your life to one person for all of eternity, through better or worse, richer or poorer, driving through Midwestern storms and facing your husband’s mistress in a foreign country.

OK, those last two examples aren’t found in most wedding vows. But they are found in two new books that examine the darker corners of marriage. Call it the domestic suspense genre.

In Siracusa, the incomparable Delia Ephron introduces us to couples Michael and Lizzie and Finn and Taylor. The foursome is traveling to Italy together, along with Finn and Taylor’s precocious daughter, Snow. These people, it must be said, have absolutely no business traveling together. 

Michael, a semi-famous playwright who has struggled to recapture the magic of his early professional success, has been cheating on Lizzie with a waitress. Finn and Taylor barely speak other than to argue about Snow, an impressionable preteen who idolizes Michael. Finn and Lizzie, who used to date, still have an undeniable spark. Meanwhile, Michael tries to hide the fact that the woman he’s sleeping with has unexpectedly turned up at their hotel in the rundown Sicilian town of Siracusa.

Add a whole lot of Italian wine to the inevitable illicit sex and bitter secrets, and a recipe for the perfect vacation this is not. When Snow goes missing, the families reach their boiling point, and harsh, irreversible truths emerge. This is a thrilling, perfectly paced and deeply satisfying read by a masterful writer.

Listen to Me is a much quieter—but no less impactful—book by the acclaimed author of Reunion and The Fates Will Find Their Way, Hannah Pittard. Laced with dreadful anticipation, Listen to Me is a spot-on depiction of the creep factor of road trips, with their desolate rest stops and weird encounters with strangers. 

Mark and Maggie are driving from their Chicago home to his parents’ Virginia farm. Maggie was recently attacked on the street near their home, the butt of a gun to the back of her head leaving her unconscious and with lingering psychological trauma. She finds herself withdrawn from her life as a wife and veterinarian, reading the news online, compulsively seeking the worst in her fellow humans. Mark struggles to be patient with Maggie’s recovery, and to resist the furtive email come-ons from his lovely teaching assistant who seems so, well, normal in comparison to his damaged wife. 

The road trip is meant to help them reconnect. They don’t realize when they hit the road that they’re driving straight into a powerful storm slicing its way through the Midwest. When the couple hits a total blackout in West Virginia, they hunker down for the night in a remote hotel. Mark takes their dog out for a pre-dawn walk, and a parking lot confrontation turns ugly, forcing Maggie to reckon with her own deep-seated fears.

As Pittard writes, evil—sometimes anonymous, sometimes known—not only exists, it thrives. Both books are gorgeously written sketches of marriages gone sour, and reminders that sometimes the scariest bogeymen are the ones in our own minds.

 

This article was originally published in the July 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

It’s Private Eye July at BookPage! All month long, we’re celebrating the sinister side of fiction with the year’s best mysteries and thrillers. Look for the Private Eye July magnifying glass for a daily dose of murder, espionage and all those creepy neighbors with even creepier secrets.

Marriage is a challenge under the best of circumstances—devoting your life to one person for all of eternity, through better or worse, richer or poorer, driving through Midwestern storms and facing your husband’s mistress in a foreign country.
NonfictionParenting

How to grow a happy family

Feature by Amy Scribner

Let’s be honest: Parents barely have time to think or use the restroom solo. So a parenting book needs to be pretty compelling to justify using those precious few minutes when you’re not semi-comatose on the couch. These common-sense guides to building a healthy family are worth your time.

REEL IN YOUR REACTIONS
I loved The Awakened Family by Shefali Tsabary, in large part because it made me feel better about occasionally losing my cool with my own tween son. I mean, Tsabary holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology, and she sometimes yells at her daughter.

Tsabary explains that parents are reactive—whether that manifests itself in yelling, overindulging or hovering—because our parenting instincts are based on fear. “Whether you have inflated, grandiose ideas of your children and what they will accomplish in life, or whether you are frightened for them or disappointed in them, all of this ultimately is rooted in fear,” she writes.

She explains why we need to trust in our children’s potential and argues that the best parenting lies in being quiet and open.

“The reason our children turn away from us is that they sense our desire to talk is all about us—our need to manage our anxiety and exert control,” she writes. “By the age of ten, your children are very familiar with how you talk and what you say. They don’t need your words of advice or admonishment. What they need instead is for you to listen and attune yourself to them.”

PARENTING WITH YOUR EX
In Two Homes, One Childhood, Dr. Robert E. Emery provides solid, reassuring advice for families coping with divorce. Director of the Center for Children, Families, and the Law at the University of Virginia, Emery is divorced and remarried himself, and has a successfully blended family. His advice is straightforward and empathetic, and emphasizes parenting as a partnership, even if the marriage is over.

“[G]ood parenting involves at least some degree of cooperation,” he writes. “After all, your seven-year-old will suffer if her bedtime is eight p.m. in one home and eleven p.m. in another. Your teenager will suffer if you ground him for three weeks for a horrible report card, but your ex tells him, ‘No problem. Have fun with your friends. You aren’t grounded at my house!’ ”

Emery’s focus is on keeping the kids out of your emotional “stuff” with your ex—perhaps easier said than done, but this smart, achievable playbook will help.

ROOM TO GROW
Psychologist Alison Gopnik is something of a superstar in the field of child development. In The Gardener and the Carpenter, she lays out her theory that caring for children is like tending a garden, with parent as gardener, encouraging a child’s natural curiosity. As Gopnik sees it, parenting most definitely isn’t like carpentry. “It isn’t a goal-directed enterprise aimed at shaping a child into a particular kind of adult,” she writes.

Gopnik dives deep into the relationship between child and parent, and lays to rest the notion that there is only one path to good parenting. Throughout the book, she traces the child-parent relationship through human evolution to help us understand how we got to this point—for example, overlaying a scene of cavemen hunting and gathering with one of her and her young grandson at the farmer’s market. She also provides simple examples of how we can be less carpenter, more gardener: contribute to the richness of a child’s world by providing a variety of playthings, from rocks to iPads, and a safe place in which to play. Then, unless the child wants you to join in, get out of their way.

WORKING TOGETHER
In Raising Human Beings, noted psychologist Ross W. Greene describes parenting as a partnership with your child. “You may not be aware of it, but you started collaborating with your kid the instant he came into this world,” he writes. “When he cried, you tried to figure out what was the matter. Then you tried to do something about it.”

Using several families as case studies, Greene helps shift the way we think about parenting. His belief is that kids do well if they are able to, and good parenting means being responsive to the hand you’ve been dealt. 

“If your kid isn’t doing well—if he’s not meeting a given expectation—it’s your job to figure out why and to put poor motivation at the bottom of the list,” he writes. “Better yet, take poor motivation off the list completely.”

Greene lays out a practical approach to non-punitive parenting—one that seems sure to promote peace in your household.

 

This article was originally published in the August 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Let’s be honest: Parents barely have time to think or use the restroom solo. So a parenting book needs to be pretty compelling to justify using those precious few minutes when you’re not semi-comatose on the couch. These common-sense guides to building a healthy family are worth your time.
NonfictionBusiness & Finance

Make your money work for you

Feature by Amy Scribner

In the words of P.T. Barnum, “Money is a terrible master but an excellent servant.” These books are sure to help your money serve you better in 2017.

DITCH THE DEBT
Rachel Cruze hates debt. Really hates it. In Love Your Life, Not Theirs, the financial adviser and daughter of money guru Dave Ramsey advises readers to stop trying to keep up with the Joneses and—most importantly—to live debt-free. No credit cards. No car loans.

“[W]hatever you have to give up to live without debt is worth the peace of mind you’ll have and the money you get to keep instead of sending it to the bank,” she argues. 

The message is hardcore for a country in love with credit, but Cruze makes a compelling argument for using cash for most purposes, building an emergency fund, saving for the future and donating a healthy portion of your earnings. 

“People who love their money and stuff more than they love other people will live small, lonely and ultimately ineffective lives,” she writes. 

YOU & YOUR MONEY
Self-described holistic wealth expert Leanne Jacobs views money as something we earn when we open ourselves to it. In Beautiful Money, she details a path to wealth that includes changing our thought patterns about money, building multiple income streams, practicing yoga and (sorry, Rachel Cruze!) building a credit history with a credit card or car loan. 

An MBA and former executive, Jacobs clearly knows her stuff. Her unorthodox approach is not for everyone, but it’s full-hearted and sincere. She advises readers to adopt a wealth mantra, such as: Beauty, abundance and grace flow my way every day. Every cell of my body reminds me that I deserve the very best. In the end, she writes, there is one essential truth about money: “How we treat, respect, discuss, use or abuse money is a real-life measure of our own self-worth.”

SAVINGS SHORTCUTS
In Pogue’s Basics: Money former New York Times tech columnist and life hack enthusiast David Pogue shares nifty tricks for holding onto more of your hard-earned cash. By focusing on what he calls “quirks in the system,” Pogue offers some pretty ingenious ways to save, from keeping your tires inflated to reduce gasoline costs, to earning extra cash by signing up for online focus groups. The advice is packaged in a nicely designed, graphics-heavy book that highlights ballpark savings in red.

Pogue’s tips cover virtually every aspect of life, from tech and TV to food and drink. In The Last Legal Tax Dodges, he lists dozens of deductions and tax credits, downright gleeful as he explains 529 plans, charitable giving and home sales profits. “If you made a profit from selling your home after living there at least two years, the first $250,000 of profit is yours, tax free,” he writes. “If you’re married and filing jointly, make that $500,000. Ka-ching!”

 

This article was originally published in the January 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

In the words of P.T. Barnum, “Money is a terrible master but an excellent servant.” These books are sure to help your money serve you better in 2017.
FictionDebut Fiction

Land of lawlessness

Feature by Amy Scribner

Two historical novels offer searingly good stories set in the raw and dangerous American West.

Set in 1876 Wyoming, Dragon Teeth is a “found” manuscript from the great Michael Crichton, who died in 2008. Not a typical Crichton blockbuster, it draws from the best of Western fiction. (Think shootouts and a villain whose entrance makes the saloon music halt.)

On a foolish bet, sheltered Yale student William Johnson joins a summer expedition to Wyoming, where he assists a paleontologist digging up dinosaur bones. They hit the jackpot, unearthing a previously undiscovered skeleton. But Native Americans, water buffalo herds and a scheming, rival paleontologist send the expedition packing. Johnson is separated from the group and finds himself in a rough town with the deliciously perfect name of Deadwood. On his first morning, he steps outside the hotel to find a body in the street. “Flies buzzed around the body; three or four loungers stood over it, smoking cigars and discussing its former owner, but no one made any attempt to move the corpse, and the passing teams of horses just wheeled past it.” This is, needless to say, a long way from the rarified air of New Haven. Burdened with crates of fossils he feels compelled to protect, Johnson is challenged for the first time in his life to survive on his own wits, not his parents’ money.

Full of twists and a cool appearance by the Earp brothers, Dragon Teeth is both thrilling and thought-provoking.

Also fighting for survival is Dulcy Remfrey, the heroine of Jamie Harrison’s debut, The Widow Nash, set in turn-of-the-century Washington and Montana. Dulcy is fleeing her abusive ex-fiancé, Victor, but two factors complicate her efforts: One, Victor is her father’s business partner, and two, her dear father has just died after suffering for years from syphilis. While accompanying her father’s body on a train from Seattle to New York, Dulcy disappears—or so it seems.

Actually, Dulcy fakes her own suicide and slips off the train in windy Livingston, Montana, where she becomes Maria Nash, a recent widow. Although she tries to keep to herself in this “place where she’d stopped being herself,” Dulcy gradually becomes part of the colorful Livingston community, with its corrupt police, promiscuous innkeeper and gossipy women. After a lifetime of attending to her father while he searched the globe for a cure for his illness, this is the first time Dulcy has been truly alone. She buys a home and plants a garden, reads stacks of books and quietly starts a tentative romance with a writer.

“She had finally peeled off her old life, lost her ability to fret over secrets before this new one,” Harrison writes. But a slip-up in Dulcy’s carefully cultivated new life could lead Victor right to her door.

Richly descriptive, The Widow Nash is the luminous story of a woman suspended between two worlds, one promising, the other catastrophic.

 

This article was originally published in the June 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Two historical novels offer searingly good stories set in the raw and dangerous American West.

FictionMystery

Cases for literature lovers

Feature by Amy Scribner

A pair of hair-raising whodunits aimed at bibliophiles are worthy of a top place on your summertime reading list.

Magpie Murders by screenwriter and bestselling author Anthony Horowitz (Moriarty) is a wickedly clever Agatha Christie-style novel within a novel. As editor Susan Ryeland reads through the manuscript for the ninth novel from her publishing house’s bestselling author, Alan Conway, she finds that his Magpie Murders is a crisp murder mystery set in the bucolic English village of Saxby-on-Avon, a town filled with Georgian stone homes and terraces, where you “didn’t need to read Jane Austen. If you stepped outside, you would find yourself actually in her world.”

In Conway’s story, local cleaning lady Mary Elizabeth Blakiston and the wealthy man she works for, Sir Magnus Pye, have both been killed inside Pye Hall. There is no shortage of suspects: Could it have been Pye’s sister who was cut out of the family fortune? The vicar who stands to lose his lovely view when Pye sells off his land for the construction of a cookie-cutter housing development? The son of the cleaning lady who was heard shouting at his mother just before her death? Conway’s brilliant London detective, Atticus Pünd, comes to the secretive town of Saxby-on-Avon for what might be his last investigation.

But the final chapters of the Magpie Murders manuscript are missing, and Conway is now out of the picture in a very unexpected way. Susan comes to suspect that the fictional manuscript holds a darker, real-life story. As life imitates art, Susan becomes a detective of sorts as she begins to interview Conway’s associates in order to piece together what really happened to him and discover where those lost chapters are hidden. Magpie Murders is brilliantly constructed, a thoroughly satisfying read that left me dazzled.

In Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore, first-time author Matthew Sullivan creates a vivid world inside Denver’s Bright Ideas Bookstore, where 30-year-old Lydia Smith works and nurtures the store’s “BookFrogs,” damaged men who spend their days wandering the cozy aisles.

When one of the youngest BookFrogs, Joey Molina, hangs himself inside the store, it is Lydia who finds him. Joey leaves Lydia a set of books that contain coded messages within their pages. The discovery cracks open a long-held secret from her youth—the fact that she famously survived a brutal triple-murder while at a sleepover—and Lydia begins to unravel a horrifying connection between Joey and her traumatic past.

Sullivan, a former bookseller himself, weaves an intense, unsettling story. Joey is an enigmatic character, “haunted but harmless—a dust bunny blowing through the corners of the store.” And the flashbacks to that fateful night from Lydia’s childhood, narrated by her father, literally had me reminding myself to breathe.

Twisty and dark, Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore is a remarkable debut novel that will leave readers unsettled and probably yearning to pay a visit to their local bookstore.

 

This article was originally published in the July 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

A pair of hair-raising whodunits aimed at bibliophiles are worthy of a top place on your summertime reading list.

NonfictionParenting

It’s a hard job, but someone’s gotta do it

Feature by Amy Scribner

Raising children has never been more complex, but with a mix of expertise, humor and compassion, these parenting books offer important advice for parenting in the modern age.

It’s pretty easy to focus on weaknesses—our own and our kids’. How many times do we start sentences with “don’t” or focus on the average grades on the report card instead of the excellent ones? In The Strength Switch, Lea Waters, founding director of the Centre for Positive Psychology at the University of Melbourne, urges parents to move away from the negativity bias and offers strategies for helping children build important strengths such as gratitude, self-control and mindfulness.

“Savoring and gratitude help us and our children recognize the good times, intensify the juiciness of the moment, and do the strength building that happens when life is good,” she writes.

Waters writes with typical Australian sunniness and uses stories from families (including her own) and educators to illustrate her points. The Strength Shift offers a roadmap for making small shifts that will yield big results for children.

LAUGH IT OFF
Jen Hatmaker and her husband, Brandon, are pastors in Austin, Texas. She’s the bestselling author of 11 books, including several Bible studies, but her brand of religion is so inclusive, nonjudgmental and loving that her writing feels accessible to any woman—Christian or not—seeking wisdom about how to embrace a messy, beautiful life.

Hatmaker’s latest book, Of Mess and Moxie, is not strictly about parenting. She writes passionately about many aspects of modern female life, such as resiliency, the importance of creating art and how to find time to exercise (although she admits that, for her, “The problem is, I prefer watching Netflix and eating snacks.”). But her most poignant and hilarious chapters focus on her family of five children. From having the sex talk with her kids to grocery shopping for a family of seven, she mixes her advice with a healthy dose of humor and writes in a conversational tone that makes you feel like she’s confiding in you.

TURNING POINT
Many in our society are still grasping what it means to be transgender, although the recent high-profile transition of Caitlyn Jenner has helped educate Americans on the issue. Transgender Children and Youth by Elijah C. Nealy is an invaluable resource for those supporting children who are transgender. Nealy—a professor, clergyman and transgender man—provides in-depth explanations of what it means to be transgender and to be diagnosed with gender dysphoria, and what therapy and medical transitions entail. Perhaps most importantly, Nealy details how to work with young people and their families who are dealing with issues surrounding gender dysphoria and gender diversity.

Although the book is geared toward mental health providers and educators, it is a comprehensive and compassionate narrative that will prove useful for anyone seeking to better understand and support transgender youth. Using vignettes from his years of personal experience, as well as suggested approaches for professionals to take during family conversations, Nealy focuses not only on coming out as transgender but also on building and living a life as a happy transgender individual.

NO SHAME
Sarah Ockwell-Smith, a doula and homeopath, opens Gentle Discipline with a bold statement: “Almost everything we think we know about disciplining children today is wrong.”

Can’t get your toddler to brush his teeth? Why is your son suddenly swearing like a pirate? Ockwell-Smith may be a parenting expert, but even she has experience with her own son yelling an expletive in public. The truth was, her son was tired, he was hot, and he was thirsty. “He just snapped. Just as we all do at times,” Ockwell-Smith writes.

That’s the beauty of Ockwell-Smith’s guidance: She’s low on judgment and high on helpful insights into why your kid can go from angel to monster in 10 seconds flat. She details how children’s brains develop, how they learn and some common physiological triggers for poor behavior (such as sugar, lack of sleep and plain old sensory overload), as well as psychological ones (mimicking the actions they see in others).

But what’s truly thought provoking is Ockwell-Smith’s view that most common discipline methods just don’t work. Physical punishment like spanking causes kids to be more defiant. Distraction prevents children from discovering that emotions are OK. Ockwell-Smith offers excellent “gentle discipline” strategies for addressing some of the most common issues, such as whining, sibling rivalry and lying. This is a handbook for end-of-their-rope parents looking for a fresh approach to discipline.

BOYS AT THEIR BEST
If you’re looking for help with parenting your teenage boy, turn to He’s Not Lazy by Adam Price. As the mother of a 12-year-old son, I was drawn to child psychologist Price’s empathetic views. He writes, “Not only are there the physical changes to contend with, but on a deeper level your son is grappling with profound questions . . . Who am I? What do I believe in? What should I become, and do I have what it takes to get there?”

Price focuses specifically on boys, as boys are much likelier to be diagnosed with learning disabilities, and many education specialists believe boys “are at an intrinsic disadvantage in a classroom that discourages their natural tendency to be active, and competitive.” So rather than facing failure, boys simply opt out and are thus likely to be labeled as lazy.

Parents can help combat this by being their sons’ advocates. No, this doesn’t mean hovering while your son does his homework. It means helping your son find his own motivation. As Price puts it, “The qualities you most want him to develop—self-control, self-determination, self-regulation—all begin with the same word.”

Price outlines common-sense tactics to support boys in finding those “self” words. I have a feeling I’ll be pulling this book off the shelf to consult for years to come.

 

This article was originally published in the August 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Raising children has never been more complex, but with a mix of expertise, humor and compassion, these parenting books offer important advice for parenting in the modern age.

NonfictionBusiness & Finance

When timing is everything

Feature by Amy Scribner

Time: There’s never enough of it, and it slips through our fingers. As the poet Mary Oliver asked, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

In this pair of books, a first-time author and a bestselling author offer their advice on making the most of the time we have.

In When to Jump: If the Job You Have Isn’t the Life You Want, Mike Lewis recalls landing a plum job at a major corporation after graduating from an Ivy League school. He thought he’d achieved everything he could hope for, but at age 23, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he should be doing something else.

“For twenty-three years, I had chased plainly laid out goals,” he writes. “Goals that were easy to want to chase because they were popular with the older people around me and were even popular among my own peers. . . . I felt compelled to run faster toward particular goals—at the risk of forgetting what I was hurling toward, and why.”

So did Lewis want a different corporate position, or perhaps a career switch to science or the arts? No. He wanted, somewhat unbelievably, to pursue a professional career playing squash. And he did! Lewis’ book offers practical advice about how—and most importantly when—to make a big career switch. Lewis isn’t the only one who has taken a huge, life-changing leap, and essays by these passionate risk-takers bolster this compelling book. Others who have listened to their own “little voice,” as Lewis calls it, and switched careers include a mechanical engineer who becomes a trainer, a reporter who joins the Marines and a garbage collector who now designs furniture.

I promise I like this next book for more than just its rock-solid, evidence-based defense of naps. Daniel H. Pink, who taught us the secrets of achieving high performance in his bestselling Drive, returns with another deeply researched and lively book. In When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, Pink reveals that timing really is everything.

No matter where one lives, everyone experiences the same daily rhythm: a peak, a trough and a rebound. It may be at different times for different people (some people are night owls while others are morning people, while still another group is what Pink calls “third birds”). The trick is to take advantage of the time when you’re at your best to do your toughest work.

And that time is rarely mid­afternoon. Pink noted a British survey that pinpoints the most unproductive moment of the day: 2:55 p.m. Afternoon is when hospital workers are least likely to wash their hands, it’s when Danish schoolchildren fare worse on exams and it’s when prisoners are less likely to get parole.

Throughout the book, Pink breaks down the science of timing by offering what he calls the “Time Hacker’s Handbook.” These are simple tips to maximize your time, such as how to take the perfect nap. This marriage of research, stories and practical application is vintage Pink, helping us use science to improve our everyday lives.

 

This article was originally published in the January 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Time: There’s never enough of it, and it slips through our fingers. As the poet Mary Oliver asked, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” In this pair of books, a first-time author and a bestselling author offer their advice on making the most of the time we have.

Fiction

Big books of summer

Feature by Amy Scribner

I don’t know how they do it—bestselling authors who deliver satisfying reads year after year. Among this season’s surefire bestsellers are two terrific novels from masters of their genres.

Stephen King’s The Outsider opens with every parent’s worst nightmare: Eleven-year-old Frankie Peterson is found raped and mutilated in a Flint City park. Detective Ralph Anderson is sure he has a slam-dunk case—it’s as airtight as he’s ever seen. The crime scene is dripping with evidence pointing toward beloved youth baseball coach Terry Maitland. Eyewitnesses recall seeing Maitland around town before and after the crime. Yet an alibi soon emerges that mystifies local authorities: At the time of the abduction, Maitland was at a work event miles away from Flint City. He’s even on video, and his fingerprints are found at his hotel.

King peppers The Outsider with the kind of eerie, nightmarish details that only he can conjure: a man with a melted face and straws for eyes who appears in a young girl’s bedroom; a pile of clothes found in a barn, stained black; and an abandoned cave where twin boys once died.

Can a man be in two places at once? Of course not. King’s creepy, exquisitely crafted, can’t-put-it-down tale offers a shocking possibility, one that stuns hardened law enforcement officials and threatens to destroy an entire community.

MIDDLE-AGE MAZE
A totally different kind of terror envelops Kate Reddy, the Brit who won the hearts of millions of working mums in Allison Pearson’s smash debut, I Don’t Know How She Does It. In the wise and sparkling follow-up, How Hard Can It Be?, Kate faces the horrors of menopause and raising teenagers.

After years tending to kids and aging parents, Kate must now re-enter the working world to support her family. Her husband, Richard, is nursing a serious midlife crisis, having quit his job to spend most of his time cycling—or more precisely, buying expensive cycling equipment. Kate takes a midlevel position at the financial fund she set up a decade before, reporting to a man who was born the year she started college.

“I recognize his type immediately,” Kate says. “Self-styled hipster, metrosexual, spends a fortune on scruffing products and Tom Ford Anti-Fatigue Eye Treatment.”

Navigating the pitfalls of age discrimination, Kate soon demonstrates the kind of hustle that made her a financial star years before. Readers may wish she could show such moxie in her home life: Kate’s daughter uses a social media mishap to manipulate Kate into doing her homework; Kate’s son steals her credit card; and Richard, well, he makes a decision so horrible that one hopes he forgets to wear a helmet on his next bike ride.

How hard can it be? Pretty damn hard, Kate learns. But with great friends, a steely core and a clever mind, Kate shows that women can launch themselves off the mommy track and back into the world.

 

This article was originally published in the June 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

I don’t know how they do it—bestselling authors who deliver satisfying reads year after year. Among this season’s surefire bestsellers are two terrific novels from masters of their genres.

NonfictionParentingMemoir

Parenting: There is no handbook, but these come close

Feature by Amy Scribner

Let’s be real: Parenting fails happen, and meltdowns and mistakes are par for the course. This set of parenting books offers fresh solutions and insights into what makes your kids tick—and how to handle the most trying of situations.

We’ll start with the good news: Children are supposed to misbehave sometimes! And you’re supposed to let them! In The Good News About Bad Behavior, journalist and mom Katherine Reynolds Lewis dives into neuroscience research and interviews with dozens of families. She concludes that “[w]hen adults crack down on bad behavior they undermine the development of the very traits that children need to become self-disciplined and productive members of society.”

That’s not to say that Lewis advocates letting children run wild in the streets. But she argues that by undermining children’s ability to learn to regulate their own behavior, we are raising a generation of kids in chaos. We are so disengaged (how many times a day do you mindlessly pick up your phone?) and so tightly scheduled that we are forgetting to let children learn to control their own choices and make mistakes. Find ways to engage with your children, set firm limits and routines, and watch your children thrive as their perfectly imperfect selves.

PARENTING IN FEAR
It was an impulsive decision that would haunt her: Kim Brooks ran into a store to pick up one item, leaving her 4-year-old son Felix happily playing in the car. In the few minutes she was gone, a bystander filmed her unaccompanied son and called the police.

Small Animals is Brooks’ recollection of the months that followed when she was unsure what the consequences would be for her and her family. But Small Animals is more than a memoir: It is a call to action for all of us to quit the judgmental parenting Olympics.

Brooks talks to Lenore Skenazy, who rose to infamy in 2008 when she wrote a piece about letting her 9-year-old son take the New York subway by himself. Skenazy founded the “free-range kids” movement and fights against the belief that our kids are in constant danger. A certain amount of freedom is important to growing independent children, Brooks argues, but we are so mired in fear of failing—of kidnapping, of injury, of not raising the next president of the United States—that it’s hard to let go.

EMBRACING THE OFFBEAT
Many parents worry about their child not fitting in and being different from the pack. In Differently Wired, Deborah Reber tries to shift the paradigm of how we think about kids with neurodifferences such as ADHD and autism.

Reber and her husband found themselves at a loss when their son, Asher, was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, ADHD and disruptive behavioral disorder. He bounced from one elementary school to another because teachers didn’t know how to handle him. Reber finally chose to home-school, but it took several painful years of trial and error to get to that point.

“When we first realize something different is going on with our child, most if not all of us feel overwhelmed with one big question: What now?” Reber writes. “Many of us are relying on word-of-mouth referrals and hours-long Internet searches for things we don’t even have the language for. We’re pioneers without a map, let alone a destination. And this lack of clarity about how to move forward adds an incredibly stressful layer to our already tapped-out lives.”

With empathy and been-there-done-that confidence, Reber outlines 18 concrete and achievable changes (what she calls “tilts”) to transform the way you approach parenting. From letting go of what others think to practicing relentless self-care and identifying your child’s stress triggers, Reber offers rock-solid steps that will shift your family dynamic.

PLAY TIME
The Design of Childhood is a fascinating look at how our surroundings shape our childhoods, both today and in the past. Architecture historian Alexandra Lange traces how changing views on raising children has impacted the way we build schools and playgrounds, the toys we buy and the cities we build.

“Our built environment is making kids less healthy, less independent and less imaginative,” she writes. “What those hungry brains require is freedom.”

Consider the block. The universal, simple children’s toy has been reimagined endless times over the years: Think Legos, Duplo, Minecraft. “To understand what children can do,” Lange writes, “you need to give them tools and experiences that are open-ended, fungible: worlds of their own making.” Lange applies the same logic to other elements of a child’s life: Playgrounds should offer challenges and options. Planned communities should include communal spaces, access to mass transit and short commutes that support family time. This is a fascinating look at the world from a pint-size perspective.

THE RIGHT WORDS
When I picked up Now Say This by Heather Turgeon and Julie Wright, the subtitle seemed a little lofty: “The Right Words to Solve Every Parenting Dilemma.” Really? This book will tell me the right thing to say to a petulant toddler or a tired fifth-grader? As it turns out, though, these women really know their stuff, and they offer priceless tools to work with your child without losing your mind.

Turgeon, a psychotherapist, and Wright, an early childhood expert, base their advice on this simple but effective model: prepare, attune, limit set, problem solve. For example, you need to leave the park, but your toddler is not on board. You prepare (let the child know these are the last few swings), attune (acknowledge the child doesn’t want to go because he’s having so much fun), limit set (explain it’s time to go because dinner is ready) and problem solve (offer to carry him or let him walk). This approach requires patience and practice, but then, isn’t that what parenting is all about?

 

This article was originally published in the August 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Let’s be real: Parenting fails happen, and meltdowns and mistakes are par for the course. This set of parenting books offers fresh solutions and insights into what makes your kids tick—and how to handle the most trying of situations.

Fiction

Scheming siblings, murderous spouses

Feature by Amy Scribner

The theme of familial betrayal has been a part of literature since, well, forever. These two thrillers put a fresh spin on some of the oldest of tales.

At the beginning of The Better Sister by Alafair Burke, Chloe Taylor’s life seems like something out of the glossy pages of the iconic women’s magazine for which she is editor-in-chief. She’s at the top of her profession, her handsome husband Adam works for a white-shoe law firm, and their son, Ethan, is enrolled at a top Manhattan prep school. Chloe’s star rises even further when she edits a series of #MeToo stories about everyday women. Her success is the culmination of years of determination to leave behind an Ohio childhood marred by alcoholism and domestic violence. “In college, when other students scoured the catalogue for afternoon classes to accommodate their idiosyncratic sleep schedules, I was the one who set the alarm for seven so I could hit the gym and the commons before a 9:00 a.m. lecture,” she remembers at one point.

But beneath the surface, things are fracturing. There’s an affair. Ethan is caught with drugs. Chloe can’t log on to social media without encountering brutal anti-feminist comments. Oh, and Chloe’s troubled sister, Nicky—who is actually Ethan’s biological mom and Adam’s ex-wife—always lurks in the shadows, threatening to upend Chloe’s pristine image.

When someone breaks into their Hamptons home and murders Adam, Ethan becomes the prime suspect. Together, Chloe and Nicky must put aside the jealousy and pain of their past to save their son.

Burke was nominated for an Edgar Award for The Ex, and as a former lawyer, she ably weaves legal intrigue into her thrillers. The Better Sister is a brilliant look at the lengths a mother (or two) will go for family.

Samantha Downing’s My Lovely Wife has been described as “Dexter” meets Mr. & Mrs. Smith, but that doesn’t do justice to this deliciously deranged story. Think more Psycho meets “Desperate Housewives” meets Fatal Attraction.

Our nameless narrator is a tennis instructor at the posh local country club. His wife, Millicent, is a realtor. Nothing about their life is what it seems. They have a beautiful house in the tony Hidden Oaks neighborhood, but only because Millicent snagged it in foreclosure. Their relationship is based not on love and respect, but on a shared passion for kidnapping and killing women. Finding their next victim is the ultimate turn-on, making them feel they’re “wide awake while everyone else is asleep.”

Turns out, unbeknownst to her husband, Millicent is taking risks by keeping one of the women alive to torture her. When one of their victims turns up dead, it seems their pastime is about to be their undoing, until Millicent comes up with a plan to resurrect a long-gone local serial killer and pin the crimes on him. Owen Oliver Riley terrorized the community years earlier: “Two disappeared from inside their own homes. One was in a library, another in a park, and at least three had been in parking lots.”

When their actions start putting their own children at risk, one spouse is ready to pull the plug. But the other is all in. Dark and twisty, My Lovely Wife is a horrifying reminder that one never knows what keeps a marriage alive.

The theme of familial betrayal has been a part of literature since, well, forever. These two thrillers put a fresh spin on some of the oldest of tales.

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