Love Essential Labor? Readers share 100 books like Essential Labor...

By Angela Garbes,

Here are 100 books that Essential Labor fans have personally recommended if you like Essential Labor. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of The School for Good Mothers

Kim Akass Author Of Mothers on American Television: From Here to Maternity

From my list on mothers in media, culture and society.

Why am I passionate about this?

A professor of television, I had my first child at 28 and was the first of my friends to give birth. The mothering support I received came from my mother, who (bless her heart) was convinced that all women should stay home with their children and devote their lives to mothering. A lifelong feminist, I knew that something was amiss (particularly for a single parent), and as I learned more about feminism and mothering, I realized there was something at odds with the way mothers were treated in the media and society. Learning why became my passion.

Kim's book list on mothers in media, culture and society

Kim Akass Why did Kim love this book?

A much more recent book that can be read in conjunction with The Handmaid’s Tale.

I had no idea what to expect from this novel and was truly gripped by the unfolding tale of a world in which women are incarcerated for being deemed bad mothers. I am not going to give away any of the plot here, as the power of the book depends on its unfolding horror.

D W Winnicott's definition of the ‘good enough' mother resonated with me throughout this book, and I do worry that we are facing this dystopian reality in a 21st-century America that puts fetal rights before those of women and families. 

By Jessamine Chan,

Why should I read it?

8 authors picked The School for Good Mothers as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
AN OBAMA'S 2022 SUMMER READING PICK

'A taut and propulsive take on the cult of motherhood and the notion of what makes a good mother. Destined to be feminist classic - it kept me up at night' PANDORA SYKES
'A haunting tale of identity and motherhood - as devastating as it is imaginative' AFUA HIRSCH
'Incredibly clever, funny and pertinent to the world we're living in at the moment' DAISY JOHNSON

'We have your daughter'

Frida Liu is a struggling mother. She remembers taking Harriet from her cot and changing her nappy. She remembers…


Book cover of I'll Show Myself Out: Essays on Midlife and Motherhood

Olga Mecking Author Of Niksen: Embracing the Dutch Art of Doing Nothing

From my list on that will change the way you think about parenting.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a writer, journalist, and occasional translator. Originally from Poland, I now live in the Netherlands with my German husband and three multilingual children. Since my children were born, I’ve become fascinated by the various ways culture and society affect the way we raise our children. I have written about various topics, but mostly parenting for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Guardian, and the BBC, among others. When not writing or thinking about writing, I can be found reading books, drinking tea, and doing nothing.

Olga's book list on that will change the way you think about parenting

Olga Mecking Why did Olga love this book?

In this essay collection, accomplished writer Jessi Klein shares her thoughts about the changes she went through since becoming a parent. The red thread connecting these essays is the hero’s journey – and how mothers receive a call to adventure that they often refuse, meet mentors and find themselves in a completely new world. The ordeal leaves them changed but ultimately, they learn new lessons and become better and wiser for it. 

Not only are the essays hilarious and thought-provoking but I especially loved how Klein compared mothers to heroes. Because isn’t that exactly what we are?

By Jessi Klein,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked I'll Show Myself Out as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

An instant New York Times bestseller, I'll Show Myself Out is the eagerly anticipated second essay collection from Jessi Klein, author of the acclaimed debut You'll Grow Out of It.

"Sometimes I think about how much bad news there is to tell my kid, the endlessly long, looping CVS receipt scroll of truly terrible things that have happened, and I want to get under the bed and never come out. How do we tell them about all this? Can we just play Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the Fire and then brace for questions? The first of which should be,…


Book cover of Love, Money, and Parenting: How Economics Explains the Way We Raise Our Kids

Olga Mecking Author Of Niksen: Embracing the Dutch Art of Doing Nothing

From my list on that will change the way you think about parenting.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a writer, journalist, and occasional translator. Originally from Poland, I now live in the Netherlands with my German husband and three multilingual children. Since my children were born, I’ve become fascinated by the various ways culture and society affect the way we raise our children. I have written about various topics, but mostly parenting for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Guardian, and the BBC, among others. When not writing or thinking about writing, I can be found reading books, drinking tea, and doing nothing.

Olga's book list on that will change the way you think about parenting

Olga Mecking Why did Olga love this book?

Have you ever really wondered why Dutch parents are so calm and don’t push academics so much? Is it because of some secret special technique that they use? Nope. It’s because cultures that value cooperation over competition like the Netherlands – feel less pressure for their children to excel in school. Turns out the secret to good parenting is having a good social support system. 

I like books about parenting that are counter-intuitive and this one, while more academic than the other ones on the list, is no exception. I have picked it because it proves that parents, like all humans act under economic, financial, and social constraints—a fact that gets easily ignored.

By Matthias Doepke, Fabrizio Zilibotti,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

An international and historical look at how parenting choices change in the face of economic inequality

Parents everywhere want their children to be happy and do well. Yet how parents seek to achieve this ambition varies enormously. For instance, American and Chinese parents are increasingly authoritative and authoritarian, whereas Scandinavian parents tend to be more permissive. Why? Love, Money, and Parenting investigates how economic forces and growing inequality shape how parents raise their children. From medieval times to the present, and from the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Sweden to China and Japan, Matthias Doepke and…


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Book cover of Tap Dancing on Everest: A Young Doctor's Unlikely Adventure

Tap Dancing on Everest by Mimi Zieman,

Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.

The team attempts a new route up…

Book cover of Motherwhelmed: Challenging Norms, Untangling Truths, and Restoring Our Worth to the World

Olga Mecking Author Of Niksen: Embracing the Dutch Art of Doing Nothing

From my list on that will change the way you think about parenting.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a writer, journalist, and occasional translator. Originally from Poland, I now live in the Netherlands with my German husband and three multilingual children. Since my children were born, I’ve become fascinated by the various ways culture and society affect the way we raise our children. I have written about various topics, but mostly parenting for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Guardian, and the BBC, among others. When not writing or thinking about writing, I can be found reading books, drinking tea, and doing nothing.

Olga's book list on that will change the way you think about parenting

Olga Mecking Why did Olga love this book?

Do you think that you’re failing as a mother? That you’re not doing enough, or doing too much, or doing all the wrong things? Do you always have the feeling that you should enjoy parenting more and beat yourself up if you can’t? Mostly, do you believe that it’s your fault? 

Guess what, it’s not you, it’s the culture. A culture that doesn’t support parents. That expects everything of them without giving anything back in return. 

But there is a way out of this mess and it starts with re-writing your story.

I have chosen this book because of its radical message that mothers are not just worthy of support but that they can also change the world. That they’re tired and exhausted and overwhelmed but also strong and smart and powerful. 

By Beth Berry,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Today’s mothers are struggling; though, it's not for the reasons most moms tend to think. We’ve been conditioned to believe our inadequacy is the reason we can’t seem to “keep up” or enjoy mothering more, but nothing could be further from the truth.

We aren’t failing as mothers. We’re mothering within a culture that is misleading and inadequately supporting us.

Motherwhelmed is a deep, yet lighthearted exploration of the messy frontier of modern-day motherhood we’re all struggling to navigate. With compassion, realness, and rich storytelling, Beth Berry:

• Illuminates the mindsets and narratives keeping us feeling overwhelmed, disempowered, anxious, isolated,…


Book cover of Becoming Kin: An Indigenous Call to Unforgetting the Past and Reimagining Our Future

Serene Khader Author Of Faux Feminism

From my list on bust white feminist myths.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a feminist political philosopher (yes, this is a job!). My superpower—and my training—is being able to see “through” public life to the values and arguments that animate it. I have been writing about the ideas behind feminist movements, especially movements in the global South, for almost 15 years. I am also a mom of color who thinks a lot about women’s labor.

Serene's book list on bust white feminist myths

Serene Khader Why did Serene love this book?

I love how this dazzling book reveals a deep truth that is known to so many women of color but obscured by the white feminist myth of individualism. There is no way we can be not related to each other, so the real question that matters for politics is not whether we will be related to each other; it is how we want to be.

Part excavation of settler colonialism—including its effects on Indigenous women—and part meditation on how to build solidarity without denying our complicity in oppressive structures, the book is visionary and even manages to be hopeful. It also draws attention to an issue that no 21st-century feminism can afford to ignore: our relationships with the land. I learned so much about what it means to show up for each other and about why we have to.

By Patty Krawec,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Becoming Kin as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

We find our way forward by going back.

The invented history of the Western world is crumbling fast, Anishinaabe writer Patty Krawec says, but we can still honor the bonds between us. Settlers dominated and divided, but Indigenous peoples won't just send them all "home."

Weaving her own story with the story of her ancestors and with the broader themes of creation, replacement, and disappearance, Krawec helps readers see settler colonialism through the eyes of an Indigenous writer. Settler colonialism tried to force us into one particular way of living, but the old ways of kinship can help us imagine…


Book cover of A Decolonial Feminism

Serene Khader Author Of Faux Feminism

From my list on bust white feminist myths.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a feminist political philosopher (yes, this is a job!). My superpower—and my training—is being able to see “through” public life to the values and arguments that animate it. I have been writing about the ideas behind feminist movements, especially movements in the global South, for almost 15 years. I am also a mom of color who thinks a lot about women’s labor.

Serene's book list on bust white feminist myths

Serene Khader Why did Serene love this book?

Speaking of women’s labor, Verges, a French feminist theorist from the island of Reunion, opens this manifesto with a question that I think really gets to the heart of global feminist politics: “Who cleans the world?” This simple question, she argues, explains the fundamental connection between feminism and the other key struggles of our time—the fact that capitalism creates “invisible work and disposable lives.”

Starting from the lives of women in the global South, who are literally found cleaning up the waste of the global North, she reveals that feminism cannot be a fight for the women of the global majority unless it fights racial and economic inequality on a planetary scale. Verges also offers a compelling analysis of #metoo: opposition to gender-based violence cannot begin and end with a focus on individual perpetrators, nor can we allow it to become part of an agenda that criminalizes Black and brown…

By Françoise Vergès,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

***Winner of an English PEN Award 2021***

'A vibrant and compelling framework for feminism in our times' - Judith Butler

For too long feminism has been co-opted by the forces they seek to dismantle. In this powerful manifesto, Francoise Verges argues that feminists should no longer be accomplices of capitalism, racism, colonialism and imperialism: it is time to fight the system that created the boss, built the prisons and polices women's bodies.

A Decolonial Feminism grapples with the central issues in feminist debates today: from Eurocentrism and whiteness, to power, inclusion and exclusion. Delving into feminist and anti-racist histories, Verges…


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Book cover of Who Is a Worthy Mother?: An Intimate History of Adoption

Who Is a Worthy Mother? by Rebecca Wellington,

I grew up thinking that being adopted didn’t matter. I was wrong. This book is my journey uncovering the significance and true history of adoption practices in America. Now, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, the renewed debate over women’s reproductive rights places…

Book cover of Not One Less

Serene Khader Author Of Faux Feminism

From my list on bust white feminist myths.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a feminist political philosopher (yes, this is a job!). My superpower—and my training—is being able to see “through” public life to the values and arguments that animate it. I have been writing about the ideas behind feminist movements, especially movements in the global South, for almost 15 years. I am also a mom of color who thinks a lot about women’s labor.

Serene's book list on bust white feminist myths

Serene Khader Why did Serene love this book?

I watched in awe in 2015 as thousands of women took to the streets of Buenos Aires to protest the murder of a young woman and the culture of impunity surrounding gender-based violence. This chronicle of the movement, written by one of the founders of the Ni Una Menos collective, offers a passionate reminder that social change can still happen in the streets.

Ni Una Menos began as a movement against femicide, snowballed into a women’s strike, and became one of the driving forces behind the movements that have felled abortion bans all over Latin America in the last five years. In reading, I learned all kinds of lessons about feminist politics—about things like how to connect the concerns of trans and cis women and how to frame abortion restrictions as a form of gender-based violence rather than mere infringements on choice. 

By Maria Pia Lopez,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Not One Less as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

On June 3, 2015, massive women's street demonstrations took place in many cities across Argentina to protest against femicide. Under the slogan Ni una menos, Not One (Woman) Less, thousands of women took to the streets to express their outrage at systematic violence against women, giving a face and a voice to women who might otherwise have died in silence.

Maria Pia Lopez, a founding member and active participant in the Not One Less protest, offers in this book a first-hand account of the distinctive aesthetics, characteristics and lineages of this popular feminist movement, while examining the broader issues of…


Book cover of Imagination

Serene Khader Author Of Faux Feminism

From my list on bust white feminist myths.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a feminist political philosopher (yes, this is a job!). My superpower—and my training—is being able to see “through” public life to the values and arguments that animate it. I have been writing about the ideas behind feminist movements, especially movements in the global South, for almost 15 years. I am also a mom of color who thinks a lot about women’s labor.

Serene's book list on bust white feminist myths

Serene Khader Why did Serene love this book?

I spend a lot of time thinking about what life after #girlboss looks like, and Benjamin’s book plants the seed of an answer. Benjamin opens the book with a meditation on the system that celebrates “exceptional” youth of color and how this system functions more to prop up the myth of colorblindness than to create a world in which all of us can thrive. The key to getting from that world to this one is to radically redistribute the power to imagine—so that we live in a world where it is not only the visions of tech billionaires that are shaping our future.

This might sound abstract, and it is, but the book is full of lovely exercises in liberating our power to envision the world otherwise. For example, Parker Brothers paid feminist Elisabeth Magie $500 in 1903 for a game intended to portray unrestricted capitalism as a dystopian nightmare…

By Ruha Benjamin,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

A world without prisons? Ridiculous. Schools that foster the genius of every child? Impossible. A society where everyone has food, shelter, love? In your dreams. Exactly. Princeton professor Ruha Benjamin believes in the liberating power of the imagination. Deadly systems shaped by mass incarceration, ableism, digital surveillance and eugenics emerged from the human imagination but they have real-world impacts. To fight these systems and create a world that works for all of us, we will have to imagine things differently. As Benjamin shows, educators, artists, technologists and more are experimenting with new ways of thinking and tackling seemingly intractable problems.…


Book cover of Fruitful: A Real Mother in the Modern World

Katherine Ellison Author Of Mothers And Murderers: A True Story Of Love, Lies, Obsession ... and Second Chances

From my list on mothers writing shamelessly about motherhood.

Why am I passionate about this?

Motherhood blindsided me. I was 37 and living my childhood career dream as a foreign correspondent when I serendipitously smelled the head of a friend’s newborn. Next thing I knew, I was up all night singing old Beatles' songs to a baby who needed to eat every half hour. Amazed by the power of rudimentary biology to reshape my conscious experience, I couldn’t help but start writing about it, first in essays and then in two shameless motherhood books of my own: The Mommy Brain: How Motherhood Makes You Smarter (heavily inspired by Sarah Hrdy) and Buzz: A Year of Paying Attention (about sharing an ADHD diagnosis with my son). 

Katherine's book list on mothers writing shamelessly about motherhood

Katherine Ellison Why did Katherine love this book?

Beginning in 1970, with “Up the Sandbox,” Roiphe was part of the first wave of shameless motherly truth-tellers. There are few more truer sentences than her acknowledgment that “feminism, despite its vast accomplishments, has not cured me of motherhood” in this poignant and prescient book about the impossible expectations that continue to bedevil working mothers.

By Anne Richardson Roiphe,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

The author of the best-selling novel Up the Sandbox offers a critical account of the feminist stance on marriage and motherhood, arguing for renewed support for the needs of working women trying to bring up children. 40,000 first printing. Tour.


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Book cover of Mosaic

Mosaic by Laura Gaddis,

Mosaic is a story of exploration and self-identification, of grief, relationships, tackling mental health, and how to walk through difficult times when there is nowhere else to go. The story follows Laura, who along with her husband Jason, embarked on having a baby, only to go on a journey that…

Book cover of Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point

William Watson Author Of Twelve Steps for White America: For a United States of America

From my list on explaining a divided United States of America.

Why am I passionate about this?

My own collusion with white supremacy and anti-Blackness is a lifelong journey I mitigate for my soul’s redemption. I am a Mississippi-born redneck, alcoholic, psychotherapist, San Francisco Bay Area queer, higher education administrator with a Critical Race Theory doctorate. I first learned democracy by watching my Mississippi parents risk their lives and mine in the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. Three-Fifths Magazine recently published “My First English: The Vernacular of the KKK.” My book, “Twelve Steps for White America” won the BookFest 1st Place Gold Medal for “Society and Social Sciences: Race Culture Class and Religion.” I work to live in a USA where race no longer predicts outcomes. 

William's book list on explaining a divided United States of America

William Watson Why did William love this book?

I love it when a book comes along that is both accessible and rich with content!

This book continues enriching the “how did we get here” conversation from their previous book, How Democracies Die. I argue that minority rule is an extension of the plantation economy that persists into the present.

This book took me deeply into minority rule, how it is structured, and how it threatens us today. It provided me with a more finely honed framework to not only understand the past but equip my survival in the present.

By Steven Levitsky, Daniel Ziblatt,

Why should I read it?

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


Book cover of The School for Good Mothers
Book cover of I'll Show Myself Out: Essays on Midlife and Motherhood
Book cover of Love, Money, and Parenting: How Economics Explains the Way We Raise Our Kids

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Interested in motherhood, mothers, and feminism?

Motherhood 54 books
Mothers 95 books
Feminism 374 books