Why am I passionate about this?

Parenting books bore me. I don’t like reading instruction manuals, and don’t have time to weigh others’ opinions about how to raise my kids. But when I read books about motherhood forged in self-reflection and told with literary elegance, I become a more self-reflective parent and have the eyes to see beauty in my ordinary maternal experiences. Books like this are few and far between. It’s hard for mothers to make art; when our resources are spread thin in parenthood, why do work that may not pay? How to find time for creative rumination? But here’s a list of books written by mothers who persisted in their creative work to show us motherhood in all of its mundanity, mania, and magic. 


I wrote

The Mother Artist: Portraits of Ambition, Limitation, and Creativity

By Catherine Ricketts,

Book cover of The Mother Artist: Portraits of Ambition, Limitation, and Creativity

What is my book about?

It blends memoir with studies of the art and lives of women artists and writers who had children, including Elizabeth…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of Linea Nigra: An Essay on Pregnancy and Earthquakes

Catherine Ricketts Why did I love this book?

I often wonder "How is a mother to focus on a project in the face of constant interruption?" For the Mexican writer Jazmina Barrera, it happened in fragments. Using artworks as points of departure, Barrera wonders her way through pregnancy and early motherhood, asking poignant questions about how to persevere in creativity while mothering. She gathers bits of writing penned while mothering into a coherent narrative of one mother’s beginnings.

It’s written in Spanish and gorgeously translated into English by Christina MacSweeney. I loved its meditative tone, poetic language, and all that it taught me about women writers and artists.

By Jazmina Barrera, Christina Macsweeney (translator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Linea Nigra as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

“Eminently worthy of acclaim.” ―Vogue (The Best Books of 2022 So Far)

An intimate exploration of motherhood, Linea Nigra approaches the worries and joys of childbearing from a diverse range of inspirations and traditions, from Louise Bourgeois to Ursula K. Le Guin to the indigenous Nahua model Luz Jiménez. Part memoir and part manifesto, Barrera’s singular insights, delivered in candid prose, clarify motherhood while also cherishing the mysteries of the body.

Writing through her first pregnancy, birthing, breastfeeding, and young motherhood, Barrera embraces the subject fully, making lucid connections between maternity, earthquakes, lunar eclipses, and creative labor. Inspired by the…


Book cover of Women Holding Things

Catherine Ricketts Why did I love this book?

Here’s an art book I adore, filled with paintings by Maira Kalman that depict just what the title suggests: Women holding things.

Women hold so much—our children, our aging loved ones, watering cans and zucchini, schedules and lists, grief and gladness. I love how this collection of images cumulatively illustrates the weight that women bear, the joy and burden of it all. Interspersed throughout are brief, poignant reflections that frame the visual concept.

By Maira Kalman,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Women Holding Things as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From the critically acclaimed artist, designer, and author of the bestsellers The Principles of Uncertainty and My Favorite Things comes a wondrous collection of words and paintings that is a moving meditation on the beauty and complexity of women's lives and roles, revealed in the things they hold.

"What do women hold? The home and the family. And the children and the food. The friendships. The work. The work of the world. And the work of being human. The memories. And the troubles. And the sorrows and the triumphs. And the love."

In the spring of 2021, Maira and Alex…


Book cover of Nightbitch

Catherine Ricketts Why did I love this book?

This novel made me laugh out loud and made me ache with recognition.

A visual artist by training, the protagonist finds herself sequestered from the art world in the throes of early motherhood. In an uncanny, hilarious, and insightful story about a mother who turns into a dog, Nightbitch shows us the animality of motherhood—its fleshiness, its carnal love.

As a mother and an artist myself, I was inspired to lean into those aspects of parenting, trusting that even as they separate me from the world of propriety, ambition, and achievement, they ultimately enrich the art that I make.

By Rachel Yoder,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked Nightbitch as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In this blazingly smart and voracious debut novel, an artist turned stay-at-home mom becomes convinced she's turning into a dog. • "A must-read for anyone who can’t get enough of the ever-blurring line between the psychological and supernatural that Yellowjackets exemplifies." —Vulture

One day, the mother was a mother, but then one night, she was quite suddenly something else...

An ambitious mother puts her art career on hold to stay at home with her newborn son, but the experience does not match her imagination. Two years later, she steps into the bathroom for a break from her toddler's demands, only…


Book cover of Stranger Care: A Memoir of Loving What Isn't Ours

Catherine Ricketts Why did I love this book?

In my reading, I seek to surround myself with experiences of motherhood that are different from my own. In this memoir, Sarah Sentilles tells the story of fostering a child with the hopes of adopting her while shedding light on the injustices and inefficiencies of the American foster system.

I loved the tender descriptions of maternal love and the way that Sentilles writes about maternal grief. While chronicling her experience of loving a child that isn’t her own, she urges all of us to extend mother-like love beyond our own families, even to the children of strangers.

By Sarah Sentilles,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Stranger Care as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE • “A powerful, heartbreaking, necessary masterpiece.”—Cheryl Strayed, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Wild
 
The moving story of what one woman learned from fostering a newborn—about injustice, about making mistakes, about how to better love and protect people beyond our immediate kin
 
May you always feel at home.
 
After their decision not to have a biological child, Sarah Sentilles and her husband, Eric, decide to adopt via the foster care system. Despite knowing that the system’s goal is the child’s reunification with the birth family, Sarah opens their home to a flurry of social…


Book cover of Motherhood: A Confession

Catherine Ricketts Why did I love this book?

I found it almost impossible to find time for self-reflection in early parenthood. I was consumed at all times by the urgent needs of the infant and toddler in my care. But when I read Motherhood: A Confession, I became self-reflective by proxy.

Using Saint Augustine’s Confessions as a literary companion, Natalie Carnes asks, What if one of the greatest texts about human nature were written not by a man but by a woman and a mother? Using the self-awareness that is a hallmark of Augustine’s memoir, Carnes shows us maternal love and its shadow side, inviting us to see, from the eyes of women, both the dark and luminous shades of the human condition.

By Natalie Carnes,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Motherhood as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A meditation on the conversions, betrayals, and divine revelations of motherhood.

What if Augustine's Confessions had been written not by a man, but by a mother? How might her tales of desire, temptation, and transformation differ from his? In this memoir, Natalie Carnes describes giving birth to a daughter and beginning a story of conversion strikingly unlike Augustine's-even as his journey becomes a surprising companion to her own.

The challenges Carnes recounts will be familiar to many parents. She wonders what and how much she should ask her daughter to suffer in resisting racism, patriarchy, and injustice. She wrestles with…


Explore my book 😀

The Mother Artist: Portraits of Ambition, Limitation, and Creativity

By Catherine Ricketts,

Book cover of The Mother Artist: Portraits of Ambition, Limitation, and Creativity

What is my book about?

It blends memoir with studies of the art and lives of women artists and writers who had children, including Elizabeth Catlett, Alice Neel, Ruth Asawa, Joan Didion, Marilynne Robinson, and Toni Morrison. It debunks the myth that to be an artist you must give up a family life, demonstrates the very real challenges facing women who aspire to rise in their disciplines, and explores the uniquely humanizing vision that caregivers bring to the making and shaping of culture. 

Book cover of Linea Nigra: An Essay on Pregnancy and Earthquakes
Book cover of Women Holding Things
Book cover of Nightbitch

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Christmas Actually

By Lisa Darcy,

Book cover of Christmas Actually

Lisa Darcy Author Of The Pact

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

Author Cat lover Traveler Reader Amateur tennis player Foodie

Lisa's 3 favorite reads in 2023

What is my book about?

Every picture tells a story, but it’s not always the one we expect or remember. Christmas Actually is a festive drama about family and forgiveness and a snapshot of modern family life, addressing Instagram to motherhood and everything in between.

Why Christmas? My publisher wanted my new novel to have a festive theme, specifically set in Australia–sun, surf, sunburn, and prawns. Christmas in Australia is very different from Christmas in the UK, USA, and Canada. We typically wear shorts and t-shirts, eat salad and seafood for Christmas lunch, and play beach cricket in the afternoon. Despite the season, conflicts, secrets,…

Christmas Actually

By Lisa Darcy,

What is this book about?

Time spent with family can be challenging, especially at Christmas actually…

Kate Cavendish is stuck in a rut. That is until a former colleague contacts her and offers her a chance to fulfil her lifelong dream of becoming a successful photographer.

With her focus pulled in all directions by her children, her pregnant sister, her newly-dating mother, and the niggling worry that her husband might be having an affair, Kate is filled with self-doubt.

Then as the countdown to Christmas begins, and memories of her own childhood resurface, Kate’s anxiety deepens – both personally and professionally. Can she move on…


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Interested in motherhood, adopted children, and women?

Motherhood 53 books
Adopted Children 22 books
Women 649 books