Hmm I guess it depends a bit where you are at the moment, and what you are interested in! And also if you're more interested in 'real life accounts' or in theoretical discussions or guide books.
Below some of the stuff I have read or am reading, and finding useful. However I'm at the start of the process myself so perhaps in hindsight I will find different books more helpful! Still, hope it helps a bit :)
- Given our circumstances we are particularly interested in books regarding adopting when you have birth children. (Have found 'when Daisy met Tommy' to be a lovely and very insightful read). We are less interested in books about adopting sibling pairs, as it is not very likely we would be accepted for that.
- Having a birth child, we were not too interested in reading up on 'general parenting' (been there, done that, threw out most books as didn't agree with them). We are more interested in finding out more about how it is different when parenting an adopted child. (Have started on 'real parents, real children' (I think) and finding it good, though it is already a bit older and US based).
- Have done some reading regarding 'therapeutic parenting'. Though I have found that we apply many therapeutic parenting principles to our birth son already, but I think I would need to do it more consciously and consistently with an AC. Have a Dan Hughes book waiting to be read. Also can recommend 'How to talk so that kids will listen, and how to listen so that kids will talk' as well as 'playful parenting' though they are not precisely therapeutic parenting, they share many of the same principles.
- At some point the question will come as to what 'issues' you think you are able and willing to deal with. That's what I find hardest at the moment, so I have been trying to look for stuff on the realities of parenting a child who has, say, fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, or Down syndrome, or attachment disorder, etc. I have found Torey Hayden's books insightful, she is a special ed teacher and in her writing the children she teaches, who may have any or several of these 'issues', appear totally human, they are real people, she respects them for who they are but never gives up on them. So apart from direct experience it's about as close as you can get, I think. Though parenting is obviously different to teaching, but still it's a start.
Or, you might want to read up on parenting a child who has experienced sexual abuse, or violence, or whatever it is that you are considering.
- Another point would be to get a good idea about what 'kind' of children are 'available' for adoption. I have found accounts from foster carers to be helpful. Casey Watson, Cathy Glass. It's just a kind of reality check of what kind of experiences children who are taken into care are likely to have had in their early lives. At the same time these books give you an idea of how you can deal with the effects of those early experiences, and an insight of what it means to have a child in your life who had such a bad start. Though of course each of these authors has their own way of doing things and it wouldn't necessarily mean that you'd choose to do things exactly the same way.
Hey, if you do end up reading any of these, come back and let me know what you thought! :)