Shelf Life: Chronicles of a Cairo Bookseller by Nadia Wassef

Author:Nadia Wassef [Wassef, Nadia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Biography & Autobiography, Cultural; Ethnic & Regional, General, Business & Economics, Women in Business, Travel, Middle East, Egypt, Literary Criticism, Books & Reading
ISBN: 9780374600198
Google: WBYQEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 2021-10-05T00:21:48.713523+00:00

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When I was pregnant, people were always entering my space, touching my bump, offering unsolicited advice. “Breastfeed for the first two years!” “Don’t breastfeed!” “Formula is liquid garbage!” “Stay active!” “Don’t overexert yourself!” I became fed up with all these contradictory remarks, the gadgets and guidebooks, which promised to empower me but really just made me feel claustrophobic. Maybe my mother knew more than I gave her credit for. I wasn’t completely sold on her old-school ways, but I also knew that contemporary consumerism and perfectionism were no better.

“What about Dad?” I asked her once, in earnest.

“Ramzi?” my mother replied, now herself surprised. “Pregnancy isn’t a man’s concern.” But of course this has changed. As I researched books to include in our Pregnancy and Parenting section, I kept seeing titles geared toward men. Titles like From Dude to Dad: The Only Guide a Dude Needs to Become a Dad emphasized the transformation inherent in “becoming” a father (the implied transition from “cool” to “less cool”—from “dude” to “dad”—wasn’t lost on me). Other titles promised survival and salvation, like The Expectant Dad’s Survival Guide: Everything You Need to Know and Diaper Dude: The Ultimate Dad’s Guide to Surviving the First Two Years. The motif of the diaper (absent from titles geared at women), and the dude who wields it, attempted to infuse new paternity with humor. Another popular book, Commando Dad: How to Be an Elite Dad or Carer, imagined fatherhood as a battlefield, an appropriately testosterone-filled terrain. Of course, there were other books that attempted to induct men into this new phase of life less comically. But regardless of the tone, my mother and her generation found the mere existence of these books, and their underlying assumptions, bizarre. In the end, I didn’t purchase books about fatherhood for Diwan. Stocking books about pregnancy was already enough of a gamble. I’d save my time and resources for titles that would sell.

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