Pregnant and Furious

To the surprise of many, the bookclubofone is currently gestating a new life form. I have spent the first few weeks of gestation reading up on advice, violently disagreeing with it and working myself up into a big hormonal strop.

What to Expect When You're Expecting by Heidi Murkoff

God, this book gave me the fury and no mistake. I can't imagine there's much you could do to yourself in pregnancy which would be worse for you than the stress induced by reading this. Heidi (quickly named Heidi Fuckoff by me) is obviously one of those Americans who believes that from the moment of conception the unborn child is indescribably precious while in contrast a pregnant woman is just a worthless bag of meat to carry it around in. The assumption that there is nothing you wouldn't sacrifice for your embryo/foetus, no matter how few cells it's currently composed of is pervasive and irritating. The tone of the book is shrill and preachy and it is full of advice which is so stringent as to be unfollowable. For example, if you are going to eat cherries during pregnancy, they should be organic. Your shoes must be neither high-heeled nor flat but should have a chunky, moderate heel. Buy some new ones if you have to. Although there is no actual evidence that eating nuts has any effect at all, you must avoid them to be on the safe side. What are you eating? Are you putting your love of roasted cashews above your childs health? Put that bag down you worthless whore, you're killing your baby!

For several weeks I raved and ranted at this book, promising that I was going to bury it at a crossroads with a stake through its black heart. However I have now reached a stage in the gestation process when I am a lot more serene and far hungrier so I am simply going to eat all the pages I disagree with, leaving a slender manual which might actually be of use.

Bring it on Baby: How to Have a Dude-Like Pregnancy by Zoe Williams

This was such a relief after "What To Expect..." that I couldn't even manage to get cross about the fact that it doesn't tell you how to have a dude-like pregnancy. In fact it doesn't really tell you how to do anything at all. The value of the book is that it lets you know in funny anecdotes that however worried you are about pregnancy and parenthood, Zoe has already been there and arsed it all up but both her kids are still alive, so you can stop fretting.

The Rough Guide to Pregnancy and Birth by Kaz Cooke

My favourite so far as it contains actual advice without the bossiness of What to Expect. It also has a week by week diary of the author's pregnancy which are witty and entertaining to read. Where What to Expect has pencil drawings of pregnants wearing expressions of bovine serenity, the rough guide has cartoons of fat, angry women which chimes better with my own experience.

The only thing to make me cross in this book is a very silly bit right at the end where it says you will have to think carefully about whether to let your baby have the MMR immunisation. Oh, FFS! Is Ben Goldacre completely wasting his time? Basically, you just need to decide whether you're in favour of immunisation or whether you're a total twat.

So there you have it: if you find yourself knocked up, get the rough guide as it is definitely the least bad.

Waterlog by Roger Deakin

This is an account of Roger's journey around Britain swimming in the sea, rivers, lakes and lidos.

One of the things I especially like about Roger is that although he was a lifelong green campaigner he was not one of those conservationists who want to conserve nature by keeping the hoi polloi out of it. Some of my favourite parts are Roger's arguments with gamekeepers, fishery owners, the Environment Agency and several others. I like to see him being a querolous old git.

In some ways, this is a book in which nothing much happens. None of the swims Roger undertakes are particularly extreme - he doesn't cross the channel, for instance. He considers swimming across the coryvreckan whirlpool and then sensibly reconsiders. I think this kind of adds to its charm though; there's nothing here that you couldn't manage yourself if you found the correct location.

Inspired by this, I have been enjoying the sea, a waterfall plunge pool and my local outdoor pool this summer and only caught one horrific poo disease while doing it.