Following up on Sunday Salon member Maxine pointing to Susan Hill’s rant about a survey in the UK regarding women’s reading habits after having children, I went to my reading list to see what I was up to reading-wise in the year after giving birth to Stephen.

It appears that I read 20 books in 12 months which has pretty much been my average over the past 13 years that I’ve been keeping track of the books I read. I’m not sure what happened when my son was between four- to eight-months-old but I lost track of the books I read over those months and lumped them together (November 2002 to March 2003). And while the number of parenting books I read since he was born has increased, the other books I read aren’t much different than what I read before having kids and what I read now almost six years afterwards.

I am certainly not inclined to read celebrity autobiographies by “the likes of Victoria Beckham and Jordan.” I don’t mind reading about them in magazines or blogs, but I don’t think I could tolerate hundreds of pages about them. I am also not among the 60% of mums who read less than they did before having kids although that certainly makes a lot of sense! And I definitely belong in the 8.5% minority who read non-fiction since I have a self-imposed rule about alternating between fiction and non-fiction.

In any case, my reading habits would most definitely be different if I weren’t an independent consultant working from home. Perhaps I’d read more on the commute in lieu of reading before bedtime. And perhaps I’d blog less so as to get more time to read. Who knows. I refuse to think, however, that my friends and I suffer “maternal amnesia” relating to declines in memory and brainpower after becoming pregnant. Those “experts” can go stuff it.

national year of reading aprilBTW, did you know 2008 is the National Year of Reading in the UK?

Below the fold is the list of books I read in the year after having my first child.

8/02
147. My American Journey by Colin Powell
148. Come Up and See Me Sometime by Erika Krouse

9/02
149. Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich

10/02
150. Raising Boys by Michael Thompson
151. All She Was Worth by Miyuki Miyabe

11/02-3/03
152. Good Nights by Maria Goodavage and Jay Gordon
153. Our Babies, Ourselves by Meredith Small
154. Lord of the Rings, Book 1 by JRR Tolkien
155. Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier

4/03
156. A Perfect Arrangement by Suzanne Berne

5/03
157. Lord of the Rings, Book 2 Two Towers
158. Loving Your Child Is Not Enough
159. The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
160. A Life’s Work: On Becoming a Mother by Rachel Cusk
161. Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson

6/03
162. Mothering Your Nursing Toddler by Bumgarner Norma Jean
163. The Continuum Concept by Jean Liedloff
164. I Don’t Know How She Does It by Allison Pearson
165. Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser

7/03
165. The Lord of the Rings Book 3 by JRR Tolkien
166. Touchpoints Book 1, Birth to 3 by T. Berry BBrazelton