I've totally been slacking on updating this blog. It's too much effort to go back and update on what I've read the past several months (er, half year), so let's just start fresh and new where I am now, okay?
Bliss is excellent. It is set in Turkey, and the author is Turkish. The book is beautifully written, though painful to read because of what happens to the main characters, the 15-year-old Meryem in particular (she is raped by her uncle and has thus "shamed her family"), though her cousin is also traumatized by war. However, it ends with hope.
The novel is a fascinating look at Turkey, where modern and traditional worlds clash. It was a quick read for me, and I found the language flowing and enjoyable.
I highly recommend this book
is fabulous. I found it fascinating. The author discusses the history of approaches to (and consequences of) childbirth over the ages. She focuses primarily on the Western world, though some non-Western cultures get minimal treatment. 
was pretty good. Tragically sad, but good. A doctor delivers his own babies - twins - at his office during a snowstorm in the 1960s. One baby has Down syndrome, and the doctor instructs the nurse to take the baby to an institution. This decision doesn't come out of nowhere - he had a sister with a heart condition who died young and he can't bear the thought of what a disabled child would do to his wife. When his wife wakes up from the anesthesia, he tells her the baby died. The nurse, however, can't bear to leave the baby at the institution and takes off with her, raising her as her own daughter. From there the story takes off, following the years as the two families deal with the consequences of that one choice the father made.