Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Warren Tyagi: The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke
Reading this book explained a whole lot of things about why so many families I know are struggling financially, even though we don't spend extravagantly. Simultaneously enlightening and nauseating.
Elizabeth Warren: All Your Worth : The Ultimate Lifetime Money Plan
If other personal finance books have frustrated you because they assume you have money to invest and you don't even have enough money to buy a large coffee, this is the personal finance book for you. Reading this book showed me that it's not that I waste money on stupid things--it's that our basic expenses are too high to begin with. Reading this book is the end of financial guilt and the beginning of getting out of the hole.
Adele Faber: Siblings Without Rivalry: How to Help Your Children Live Together So You Can Live Too
Lots of great ideas to think about and put into practice about not assigning your kids roles and how to approach fights. Also goes over some of the stuff from the How to Talk So Kids Will Listen book about making kids feel understood. Because, really, that's all anyone wants--to be understood. And kids are people, too.
Anne Lamott: Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year
Just perfect. A beautiful, funny, sad, accurate account of what the first days, weeks, and months with a baby are like. This is exactly what your journal would be, if you could write as well as she does.
Adrian Nicole LeBlanc: Random Family : Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx
LeBlanc's writing and pacing makes you want to keep reading despite the tragic story. Think you have an informed opinion about welfare reform and how to strengthen families in this country? Not until you've read this book.
John Taylor Gatto: Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
This is the red pill. Don't read it if you want to stay comfortable with the American school system. Gatto goes into why government-owned schools were created and the things they actually teach us.
Ellis Avery: The Smoke Week: September 11-21, 2001
If you have any curiosity about what it was like for New Yorkers during the World Trade Center attacks, this is the book to read. A brilliant, crystalline, spot-on memoir of the week or so after the attacks, this book is an ode to New Yorkers. Realistic, clean, and completely un-maudlin, it's just the story of what it was like for us. This is what should go into a time capsule to represent September 2001.
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The comments to this entry are closed.
Damn you. I listen to the Doodlebops and the Wiggles.
Posted by: MamaChristy | August 24, 2006 at 09:32 AM
I've already rejected a request for "Ernie! Bert!" this morning. I'm going to the park to avoid them.
Posted by: Kate | August 24, 2006 at 09:50 AM
Ah...D and I fell in love over Areito, it's the soundtrack of our early romance. Our late romance is to the soundtrack of the Teletubbies and Jack's Big Music Show and Dora's Fiesta.
However. I am listening to the Beatles and Dylan these days, and Carlos Vives, who should be bottled and sold as an anti-depressant.
Posted by: Menita | August 24, 2006 at 11:35 AM
I'm too darned scattered and tired to choose my own music. Luckily, I live here, and can listen to www.xpn.org. Don't know what I'd do without it.
Posted by: Cecily | August 24, 2006 at 02:10 PM
Quad City DJ's "C'mon Ride the Train" and Black Box's "Everybody Everybody" (the little person loves that part where they go "OW")
I never should have exposed him to 90's dance tracks...
Posted by: Melis | August 24, 2006 at 03:05 PM
We listen to a lot of Farmer Jason around here, but as children of the 1980s it ain't so bad (Farmer Jason is the alter-ego of Jason Ringenberg of Jason & the Scorchers)...www.farmerjason.com.
Posted by: Shelley | August 25, 2006 at 08:52 AM
mmmm... mountain goats!
Posted by: sweetney | August 25, 2006 at 10:31 AM
The Long Winters, KT Tunstall, Sparklehorse, Spoon, and Death Cab for Cutie.
Posted by: boxing octopus (impossibly hip. or hipster impostor?) | August 25, 2006 at 11:24 PM
The violent femmes, less than jake, eisley and abba. I only hear the baseline mostly as it wafts up from the kid's rooms.
Posted by: Lisa V | August 26, 2006 at 12:07 AM
DJ Mom: The Decemberists; Frank Black; The Shins; Kate Bush; Toots and the Maytals; Nina Simone; The Ramones; Bob Dylan; Chet Baker; Tito Puente; Mozart; Elvis (Costello and Presley); Rufus Wainright... I could go on, but I fear you've already nodded off.
DJ Son (7): Bartok; Mozart; Vivaldi; Beethoven; Debussy (I know it's a bit odd, but he LOVES classical music); The Beatles; Guys and Dolls; West Side Story; The Music Man; Fiddler on the Roof; 1776 (Yes, musicals too...); The Beatles; The Monkees; REM; Talking Heads; The Jam; Rufus Wainright; Blondie
DJ Daughter (4): Most of what's on DJ Son's list, minus Beethoven (HATES it); plus Dar Williams; Carol King; If I Were a Carpenter; The White Stripes; and almost any Funk.
We listen to a lot of music.
Posted by: Susie | August 27, 2006 at 10:53 AM
Oh, I forgot Tom Chapin -- great kids' music that adults can listen to without wanting to poke forks in their eyes.
Posted by: Susie | August 27, 2006 at 10:55 AM
My three-year-old discovered Copa Cabana on XM radio's 70s channel, and he loved it. I guess I enjoy making him happy at the expense of my sanity because I downloaded it from iTunes and now it's all we listen to. Ever.
"She lost her youth and she lost her Tony, now she's lost her mind. . .
Posted by: surcie | August 27, 2006 at 11:29 AM
The beatles. Yellow submarine is the best song to calm my girl down in the car. We just sing along to whatever she likes after that.
Posted by: T | August 27, 2006 at 09:17 PM
Christian artist Aaron Shust. "Anything Worth Saying" is his first cd. My seven year old loves him too. You can hear Aaron on his website. I'll include the site: http://www.aaronshust.com/index.html
Posted by: Jill | August 29, 2006 at 04:43 PM