An Innocent, a Broad

Just 26 weeks into her first pregnancy, Ann Leary's water broke--an event she sardonically refers to as "the PROM" (doctor-speak for "premature rupture of membranes). Unfortunately for her, the "PROM" took place while she was strolling along Oxford Street during a weekend trip to London, where her (then-unknown) husband Denis Leary was booked to perform a BBC comedy show. Forbidden to return home and placed on total bed rest, Ann gets "knackered" from the medications pumped into her body to prevent premature labor. In some of the book's funniest passages, she makes great efforts to prevent her many hospital roommates from discovering she's American, lest they suspect she's freeloading off the National Health Service. (Don't let the bad pun of the book's title put you off; Ann's sense of humor is often as biting and gritty as her husband's).

Despite the doctors' best efforts, baby Jack is born two weeks later, while Denis is back in the U.S. working at comedy clubs (and trying to keep the couple from being evicted from their apartment). Jack is in relatively good shape, but Ann's mental state is at risk, as sleep deprivation, anxiety, and loneliness get the best of her. Among her postpartum goofs is befriending another woman whose baby is also in intensive care; she mistakes her for a slim, serene Earth Mother instead of the heroin-addict she really is. So, An Innocent, A Broad is not so much a drama of Jack's survival as much as it is a chuckle-fest at the expense of both Ann's predicament and of the Brits in general, whose overwrought sense of propriety is mocked non-stop. Beware if you think this might seem a perfect gift for a pregnant woman; the belly laughs are constant and likely to cause any expectant woman's water to break. --Erica Jorgensen