As Mother’s Day approaches, we asked nine authors questions. What are your favorite books about moms? Here’s an overview of our bookmarkable selection…
Megan O’connell
Meghan writes about newborns and now we have everything: Day and night mingled and coalesced into one great nightmare. My clothes were indistinguishable from pajamas. The lamp was always on. We were in the middle of an ongoing emergency. Like someone is playing a practical joke on us. Endure a car crash in childbirth, sleepless, use your broken body to save a small, fragile, precious, heartbreaking, mortal child.
Meaghan’s Recommended Books: intense attachment: It contains everything I wanted to write in a book — daughters analyzing mothers, mothers criticizing daughters, long walks in Manhattan, hurt feelings, devastating insights — but , when tasked with summarizing it, I just want to make a guttural noise and force it on everyone..really, it’s about a daughter being a mother about who she is and about life. I am trying to understand if or how the thoughts of people determine themselves.
Connie Wang
Connie writes about mothers watching movies Oh my mother!: “Qing first saw ‘Magic Mike XXL’ at the Eden Prairie AMC Theater…after this first viewing, I called her every day as I walked from the subway station back to my apartment in Brooklyn.” During the phone call, Qing started mentioning it. I love how Channing Tatum makes people around him feel positive and good. Guys who don’t like this movie are just jealous! Do you think Channing Tatum isn’t afraid of older women in real life?”
Connie’s Recommended Books: downtown: Leah Carroll’s mother was killed when Leah was four years old. downtown Explore the lasting and powerful warmth of mother’s love. The mom-sized hole Leah had to grow into. As an adult, what was it like to investigate the circumstances of a murder? And how women make it through, make it through, and find meaning.
Sheila Hetty
Sheila writing about possibilities maternal: When I was younger, I always came back to this formula when considering whether I wanted children. If no one had taught me anything about the world, I would have invented boyfriends.I would have invented sex, friendship, art. I wouldn’t have invented parenting.
Sheila’s recommended books: work of life: This was the first Rachel Cusk book I read, and I was shocked at how coldly she questioned my feelings and circumstances as a new mother. If I hadn’t seen her life stripped of ugliness and emotionless, I would never have written a book about the ambivalence of having children.
Isaac Fitzgerald
Isaac writing an origin story Dirtbag, Massachusetts: My parents were married when I was born, but they were married to different people. When asked about my childhood, I open all my stories like this. I was a child of passion! A happy little accident. Or, to put it another way, I was born of sin. A mistake in human form, a bomb intended to completely blow up the lives of both parents.
Isaac’s recommended books heavy: First, Raymond’s writing is immaculate. But what his memoir resonates strongly with me is his relationship with his mother, whom he calls “you” throughout the book. The clutter on display — what it means to love someone who hurt you, especially when that hurt is perhaps a form of love — is what makes all good storytelling. is what we are aiming for. That is, the totality of the world realized on the page.
Anna Malaika Tubbs
Anna writing about James Baldwin’s mother, Vardis mother of three: She would risk standing up to her husband. Baldwin’ so that Jimmy could follow his passion. I did not allow the same thing to happen.
Anna’s recommended books: in search of mother’s garden: This anthology explores not only our biological mother, but also our definition of “mother” by considering how we are mothered by those who were born before us. Extend the
Kate Bear
Kate writes about looking up nevertheless: Have you ever seen so many stars? / I ask my son / they are too small to see / anything other than the universe / I put them in front of him.
Kate’s recommended books: waiting for birdie: i got you waiting for birdie When my first baby was born, and shortly thereafter, I bought a number of copies to stick in baby shower gift bags. It’s a thing. Instantly warm, instantly funny, instantly known. Katherine Newman forgives her worries and guilt and joy in every breath of her motherhood.Oh, this woman, I love her so much.
Nicole Chan
Nicole writes about her mother’s dog living medicine: My mom turns on the TV before she leaves the house — it’s always PBS — [her dog] You will feel comfortable with your voice and you will not feel lonely. (“Why PBS?” I asked her.
Nicole’s recommended books: breath: Imani Perry drew on history, literature, religious traditions, and her own experience to write this letter to her sons. In it, she explores the meaning of her family, freedom, community, and collective responsibility while sharing her hopes, joys, and fears as a mother raising her two black boys in America. I am searching. I have read this book many times and always find something new.
Christa Bilton
Christa writes about being a single mother by choice in Normal Family. what [my mom] What I wanted more than anything was a child. The obstacle was that Debra was a lesbian. And in the early 1980s, she didn’t know a single gay person who started her family, and even a single heterosexual woman she rarely started her family on her own — at least the intention. on purpose. American Her Dream remained strongly fixated on the idea that the only way to raise children well was within the core of a nuclear family of father, mother and 2.5 children.
Krista’s recommended books: operating instructions: Single mother Anne Lamott fearlessly exposes the realities of motherhood, including the often-unspoken moments of frustration and self-doubt that many parents go through. Her writing style is both witty and poignant. Reading this book has helped me navigate my new motherhood challenges with greater grace and compassion, and has renewed my appreciation for the beauty and complexity of this journey.
Megan O’Rourke
Meghan writing about her mother’s death long goodbye: I was not prepared to lose my mother. Even though she knew she was going to die, I wasn’t ready.After all, her mother is the gateway to your world. She is the shell that you split and become life. Waking up in a world without her is like waking up in a world without an sky. Unimaginable.
Meaghan’s Recommended Books: of Woman Bone and runaway bunny: As a mother without a mother to turn to for advice, I rely on books to navigate the ups and downs of parenting.I love the classics of feminist poet Adrian Rich of Woman Bone On how to think of motherhood as both a lived experience and a structured reality. Written in the 1970s, this book is still very accurate. As a mother of her two boys under the age of seven, I will never forget this account that recalls “the beauty of boys who have not yet been taught that a man’s body must be rigid.”
Then when you’re worried you’re failing your exuberant 4-year-old and don’t know where to turn, or when you miss your own dead mother and need a cry. runaway bunny“Once upon a time there was a little rabbit who wanted to run away. So he said to his mother, ‘I’m going to run.’ “If you run away,” said his mother, “I will chase you, for you are my little rabbit.
What are your favorite motherhood books? Please share below…
PS What are my motherhood mottos and your top 3 books of all time?
(Photo above courtesy of Marc Bordons/Stocksy.)
