The Truth About Babies | Granta

  • Published: 19/06/2003
  • ISBN: 9781862075757
  • 130x20mm
  • 352 pages

The Truth About Babies

Ian Sansom

Babies are strange creatures. They enter our lives, and things are never the same again. In this unusual book, Ian Sansom (father of three) conveys the oddness and beauty of human beings in their first year of life, and the cataclysmic affect they have on those around them. At a time when most books on babies are manuals crammed with milestones and measurements, The Truth About Babies is different. It is written as a series of meditations on every aspect of babies, from bathing, boredom, breastfeeding and buggies to weaning, weight, words and work. Sansom manages to be both playful and profound, both philosophical and earthy – and frequently very funny.

True and beautiful ... every new parent should have a copy for their journey through that first year

Allison Pearson

Packed full of wry, poignant observations on all aspects of babydom, from baby monitors to baby sick. Sansom has the ability to raise a smile and draw a tear simultaneously, and conveys the desperate love, frustration and self-doubt every new parent experiences with warmth and empathy. One to enjoy with a nightcap

New Baby

A sensitive and unique meditation which is as much about the transformation wrought upon his own life as it is about his baby

The Times

The Author

Ian Sansom regularly reviews for the Guardian and the London Review of Books. He lives in Northern Ireland with his wife and three children.

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