Identify Books Conducive To The Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times (The Midwife Trilogy #1)

Original Title: Call the midwife : a true story of the East End in the 1950s
ISBN: 0143116231 (ISBN13: 9780143116233)
Edition Language: English
Series: The Midwife Trilogy #1
Characters: Jenny Lee, Chummy Browne, Cynthia Miller, Trixie Franklin, Sister Julienne, Sister Evangelina, Sister Monica Joan, Sister Bernadette, Patrick Turner, Peter Noakes
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The Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times (The Midwife Trilogy #1) Paperback | Pages: 340 pages
Rating: 4.19 | 52900 Users | 6245 Reviews

Narration To Books The Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times (The Midwife Trilogy #1)

Having given birth with the support of a midwife three times, when I heard about this one, I knew I had to make time to read it. The Midwife is the memoir of Jennifer Worth (“Jenny”) and her experiences in the East End Slums of post-war London. I think three things come together to make this a very interesting book.

First, the voice of Jenny. She is candid and real - her storytelling doesn't sugar-coat her experiences or her mistakes. She never pretends that the East End was anything other than what it was: a hard place to live where people still found things worth living for. She shares her prejudices with us and shows us how they crumbled as she became more intimate with the people she cared for, both as a midwife and as a nurse. Life in the convent, its routines and relationships - Jenny relates these things with an unaffected and honest candor. Every once and a while the narrative felt a bit jumpy (moving between time periods, etc.), but because I was interested wherever she took me, it didn't bother me.

The second thing is that the time and place is so narrow - we get such an intimate slice of a group of people, their trappings and failures and the things that make them tick. Some of their vices are described in uncomfortable detail and you can imagine how hopeless and degrading life could be. She teaches us to appreciate "Cockneys" and there is even an appendix so we can read Cockney and understand what they are saying :) As much as this book is about being a midwife, I also think it stands well as a cultural study of a group of people that no longer exist in the same sense.

The third thing is the art of midwifery itself and her journey as a midwife. I caught myself smiling while reading some chapters, there is so much joy - and other chapters brought me to tears and had me biting my lip with worry. She was in the thick of the struggle between life and death that all mothers experience as they bring a new one into the world. And I think there is a nice balance between medical information and the more extensive personal stories that make Jenny's neighborhood vibrant, full of characters and their histories. She never pretends that it was easy or glamorous work, and sometimes the conditions she worked in were downright disgusting. I kept having the thought: this was REAL. It was her LIFE. Women gave BIRTH this way, lived this way - medical science was so different and I think this memoir gives a fascinating perspective of a way of life that is no longer, as well as a flavor for the satisfaction that comes from working with pregnant women.

It's not lyrical or dreamy - it's a down-in-the-gutters look at an ages old profession. I loved it.

Point Out Of Books The Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times (The Midwife Trilogy #1)

Title:The Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times (The Midwife Trilogy #1)
Author:Jennifer Worth
Book Format:Paperback
Book Edition:Anniversary Edition
Pages:Pages: 340 pages
Published:April 7th 2009 by Penguin Books (first published 2002)
Categories:Nonfiction. Autobiography. Memoir. History. Biography. Historical

Rating Out Of Books The Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times (The Midwife Trilogy #1)
Ratings: 4.19 From 52900 Users | 6245 Reviews

Comment On Out Of Books The Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times (The Midwife Trilogy #1)
In a reversal of my usual practice, I began watching this PBS series via Netflix last year, then decided to read the book it was based on. It's the memoir of a young girl who became a midwife in the slums of England's East End in the 1950's. The series has been very true to the stories in this book, including brilliant casting of the nuns and the midwives of Nonnatus House. Both the book and the series are excellent, and I now find that this is actually a trilogy, so I have more to come.

Can't believe what hard lives many of these people lived. Such an interesting book, chronicling the life of one Midwife in the 1950's in the East End of London. Dockworkers and their families living in tenements, woman having baby after baby. Another book that makes one glad they live in this period of time. These woman had it so hard, trying to feed their families with no indoor plumbing or water and very little money. One old lady who lived in an abandoned building actually had toenails that

I watched the BBC series Call the Midwife before I read this, and knew I would not be able to be objective about it. I already knew all the beautiful people in the book before I started. I wouldn't know where to start if I were to enumerate all of them. Some are nuns, some are young midwives, some are courageous mothers doing their best in impossible situations, some amazing fathers providing and caring for their family in horrendous circumstances, and some piteous brave children surviving the

Having given birth with the support of a midwife three times, when I heard about this one, I knew I had to make time to read it. The Midwife is the memoir of Jennifer Worth (Jenny) and her experiences in the East End Slums of post-war London. I think three things come together to make this a very interesting book.First, the voice of Jenny. She is candid and real - her storytelling doesn't sugar-coat her experiences or her mistakes. She never pretends that the East End was anything other than



I see now that this is the first book of a series: http://www.goodreads.com/series/77112...This book is fun. You are told astounding stories about the author's years working as a midwife at the Nonnatus House Convent in the Docklands during the 1950s. You meet the wonderful Sister Monica Joan, a somewhat "crazy" ninety year-old nun, Conchita Warren who will give birth to both her twenty-forth and twenty-fifth child, the latter premature of only 28 weeks gestation, weighing less than two pounds,

I really loved this book. I borrowed it from a friend while in Dublin back in April thinking it may make for a nice read over the summer - I then found my flight back to the US cancelled (volcano) and myself slightly stranded at a hotel for three days. There's certainly worst places and worst conditions to be stranded in but I had already been travelling for nearly a month for work and missing my family terribly. I felt at an extreme low. I tried reading many things to distract me and pass the

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