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Expecting Adam : A True Story of Birth, Rebirth, and Everyday Magic by Martha Beck (1999, Hardcover)

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Martha Beck. Expecting Adam. FIRST EDITION. FIRST PRINTING. New York: Random House, 1999. ISBN 0-8129-2980-2.

About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherCrown Publishing Group, T.H.E.

ISBN-100812929802

ISBN-139780812929805

eBay Product ID (ePID)907400

Product Key Features

Book TitleExpecting Adam : a True Story of Birth, Rebirth, and Everyday Magic

Number of Pages336 Pages

LanguageEnglish

TopicGeneral

Publication Year1999

GenreFamily & Relationships, Biography & Autobiography

AuthorMartha Beck

FormatHardcover

Dimensions

Item Height1.1 in

Item Weight17.4 Oz

Item Length8.6 in

Item Width5.9 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceTrade

LCCN98-026142

Reviews"A wonderful book, funny, unbelievably tender, and smart. It shimmers." --Anne Lamott, author ofOperating Instructions "Expecting Adam is Martha Beck's meticulously written, uplifting, and compassionate account of being gifted with a retarded son who opens her heart to the deep intuitions that love can bring." --Judith Orloff, M.D., author ofSecond Sight "Set half in Harvard and half in heaven, Expecting Adam is a tough-minded yet tender-hearted book of spiritual discovery--a rueful, riveting, piercingly funny, thoroughly modern and deeply old-fashioned memoir. In short, a book to be reckoned with." --Julia Cameron, author of The Artist's Way "I can't believe I almost didn't read this book. The thing is, I thought it was about a lady who had a baby with Down Syndrome. This is like saying ANNA KARENINA is a book about a lady who commits suicide. In fact, this book is about matters so important and yet so totally way-out that I would accept no one but a comic genius with seven years at Harvard under her belt telling me about them. That's Martha Beck: funny, companionable, razor-sharp, down-to-earth, and onto the Big Secrets of Life Itself. Anyone considering having a child should have to read this book. It has changed some of my thinking about pregnancy and about children with disabilities, and I don't think it's too much to say it could change my life." --Marion Winik, author ofFirst Comes LoveandThe Lunchbox Chronicles "Expecting Adam is not one of those grit-your-teeth, lemons-into-lemonade sagas that leave the reader feeling more besieged and guilty than the writer. It is a long hymn, from a practical woman caught flatfooted by amazing grace. Martha Beck is a celebrant skeptics can trust." --Jacquelyn Mitchard, author ofThe Most Wanted andThe Deep End of the Ocean "I laughed. I cried. I couldn't put it down. I didn't want it to end. I wish I knew Adam and his family--and of course I do. A brave, uplifting, life-transforming book." --Sophy Burnham, author ofA Book of Angels "With uncommon sense and dependable wit, Martha Beck unravels every assumption about the meaning of life, choice, love--and the wisdom of pursuing happiness through any of the usual routes. If Expecting Adam raises suspicions among more rational readers that Martha Beck is slightly crazy, it raised my hopes that I'd catch it from her." --Mary Kay Blakely, author ofAmerican Mom, "A wonderful book, funny, unbelievably tender, and smart. It shimmers." --Anne Lamott, author of Operating Instructions "Expecting Adam is Martha Beck's meticulously written, uplifting, and compassionate account of being gifted with a retarded son who opens her heart to the deep intuitions that love can bring." --Judith Orloff, M.D., author of Second Sight "Set half in Harvard and half in heaven, Expecting Adam is a tough-minded yet tender-hearted book of spiritual discovery--a rueful, riveting, piercingly funny, thoroughly modern and deeply old-fashioned memoir. In short, a book to be reckoned with." --Julia Cameron, author of The Artist's Way "I can't believe I almost didn't read this book. The thing is, I thought it was about a lady who had a baby with Down Syndrome. This is like saying ANNA KARENINA is a book about a lady who commits suicide. In fact, this book is about matters so important and yet so totally way-out that I would accept no one but a comic genius with seven years at Harvard under her belt telling me about them. That's Martha Beck: funny, companionable, razor-sharp, down-to-earth, and onto the Big Secrets of Life Itself. Anyone considering having a child should have to read this book. It has changed some of my thinking about pregnancy and about children with disabilities, and I don't think it's too much to say it could change my life." --Marion Winik, author of First Comes Love and The Lunchbox Chronicles "Expecting Adam is not one of those grit-your-teeth, lemons-into-lemonade sagas that leave the reader feeling more besieged and guilty than the writer. It is a long hymn, from a practical woman caught flatfooted by amazing grace. Martha Beck is a celebrant skeptics can trust." --Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of The Most Wanted and The Deep End of the Ocean "I laughed. I cried. I couldn't put it down. I didn't want it to end. I wish I knew Adam and his family--and of course I do. A brave, uplifting, life-transforming book." --Sophy Burnham, author of A Book of Angels "With uncommon sense and dependable wit, Martha Beck unravels every assumption about the meaning of life, choice, love--and the wisdom of pursuing happiness through any of the usual routes. If Expecting Adam raises suspicions among more rational readers that Martha Beck is slightly crazy, it raised my hopes that I'd catch it from her." --Mary Kay Blakely, author of American Mom

Dewey Edition22

Dewey Decimal618.20092 B

Synopsis"He says you'll never be hurt as much by being open as you have been by remaining closed." The messenger is a school janitor with a master's in art history who claims to be channeling "from both sides of the veil." "He" is Adam, a three-year-old who has never spoken an intelligible word. And the message is intended for Martha Beck, Adam's mother, who doesn't know whether to make a mad dash for the door to escape a raving lunatic (after all, how many conversations like this one can you have before you stop getting dinner party invitations and start pushing a mop yourself?) or accept another in a series of life lessons from an impeccable but mysterious source. From the moment Martha and her husband, John, accidentally conceived their second child, all hell broke loose. They were a couple obsessed with success. After years of matching IQs and test scores with less driven peers, they had two Harvard degrees apiece and were gunning for more. They'd plotted out a future in the most vaunted ivory tower of academe. But the dream had begun to disintegrate. Then, when their unborn son, Adam, was diagnosed with Down syndrome, doctors, advisers, and friends in the Harvard community warned them that if they decided to keep the baby, they would lose all hope of achieving their carefully crafted goals. Fortunately, that's exactly what happened. Expecting Adam is a poignant, challenging, and achingly funny chronicle of the extraordinary nine months of Martha's pregnancy. By the time Adam was born, Martha and John were propelled into a world in which they were forced to redefine everything of value to them, put all their faith in miracles, and trust that they could fly without a net. And it worked. Martha's riveting, beautifully written memoir captures the abject terror and exhilarating freedom of facing impending parentdom, being forced to question one's deepest beliefs, and rewriting life's rules. It is an unforgettable celebration of the everyday magic that connects human souls to each other.

LC Classification NumberRG629.D68.B43 1999