Here are 98 books that Linea Nigra fans have personally recommended if you like
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Becoming a mother rocked my world in countless ways, drawing me to books that explore the raw, unfiltered truth about how challenging motherhood can be. The complexities—the love, guilt, and frustration—resonate deeply with me. Motherhood is also why I started writing; initially, I wanted to process the overwhelming emotions I was feeling. When I began sharing my writing with friends, their “Yeah, me too's” made me realize I wasn’t alone. I have deep respect for authors who can capture the messiness of motherhood so honestly, and I’m inspired by their ability to put into words what so many of us experience.
This is one of the most hilarious, bizarre, and relatable books about motherhood I've ever read. On the surface, it’s the story of an artist turned stay-at-home mom who believes she’s turning into a dog. But at its core, it's a brilliantly original exploration of art, power, and the identity crisis that often accompanies motherhood.
I loved how it tackled the all-consuming nature of motherhood. It doesn’t shy away from the tough topics and is also laugh-out-loud funny at times. It left me both entertained and deeply reflective.
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…
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.
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.
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."
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.
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.
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…
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.
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 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.
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…
I’m a clinical and developmental psychologist, a parenting researcher at the University of Queensland, and a mother. My research is focused on applying and commitment therapy (ACT) to parenting including the parenting of children with neurodevelopmental disabilities. I wrote Becoming Mum while becoming a mother for the first time. In fact, much of the book was written while I cuddled my new baby, my laptop propped up on my knees so I could write! I am also the first author of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy the Clinician’s Guide to Supporting Parents. It is the first clinical manual on using ACT with parents.
If you are intending to breastfeed, then it is important to pick up a book on breastfeeding. Don’t make the mistake of being so focused on pregnancy and birth that you forget about lactation. There are several good options for breastfeeding books. As an Australian mother, I turned to the Australian Breastfeeding Association and I made sure I read Breastfeeding…Naturally. It gave me the knowledge I needed to know.
I’ve been completing Dry Januarys (and other sober months) since 2017! In turn, I’ve felt more energized, more positive, have experienced better sleep and better skin, among other benefits. I think giving up alcohol for any amount of time is beneficial and I encourage people to try it.
Unlike many non-alcoholic recipe books, this one's for women who are trying to conceive, are already pregnant or are breastfeeding, or individuals who are looking for a little bit more nutrition in their sips. This collection of more than 40 nutritious mocktail recipes are unique and the book also includes tips for sustainable mixology
Selected as one of Food Network's "Best Healthy Cookbooks of 2019" and as a "favorite must-read" by The Bump, Drinking for Two is the perfect gift for pregnant women, the health conscious new mom, or any woman just trying to stay healthy! This book features 45+ delicious, plant-based mocktail recipes carefully crafted to deliver essential nutrients and antioxidants, and target common pregnancy symptoms, all leading to a healthy pregnancy.
With recipes for flat, bubbly, apres-dinner, and warm comfort drinks, registered dietitians Diana Licalzi and Kerry Criss carefully developed and tested each mocktail to include whole foods and all-natural sweeteners. Quick-to-prepare…
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…
We are artists who met as PhD researchers while individually undertaking research in different areas of drawing – each sharing an interest in process-based and expanded methods of working. In addition to our individual artistic practices, since 2008 we have collaborated on a range of performance drawing projects that address the relationship between the body and presence, and time and space through working with graphite and charcoal, light, sound, and animation. We have exhibited and lectured internationally on the topic of performance drawing and have curated programmes and workshops. Working together collaboratively in this way we aim to contribute to the creative process underpinned by generations of feminist art practice and defy traditional notions of authorship.
At times, it may seem apparent that successive generations of artists reinvent the wheel and explore performance drawing across a range of disciplines; it was in particular, Tania Kovat’s writing in The Drawing Book, that gave us the broad contextualization of things – it seemed to reach into diverse yet significantly relevant references of historical predecessors that excited us. The book is complete with brilliant replications of artworks and quotes by a collection of artists.
The works in "The Drawing Book", by artists, architects, sculptors, scientists, filmmakers and thinkers of all descriptions, attest to the versatility and immediacy of drawing. From first thoughts to finely wrought, elaborate artworks, from the lightest sketch in pencil to bold, gallery-wall installations, the medium is shown as an essential vehicle for creativity. The recent prominence of artists such as Louise Bourgeois, Eva Hesse, Chris Ofili, Rachel Whiteread, Ellen Gallagher, and a host of others who use drawing as a final means of expression, is addressed in both the works shown and essays by curators Kate Macfarlane and Katharine Stout,…
I became fascinated with the lives of women around the period of World War Two when I discovered the female aviators of the Air Transport Auxiliary based in England. It wasn’t until I researched the history of reproductive rights after attending the Women’s March in 2017 in Toronto, Canada that I realized the period of the 1930s was a particularly progressive time for women, a time of early feminism. As a novelist I am drawn to the social history and the impact of wars. My first novel explored PTSD, and in this one I’m exploring the lives of women who fought against the gender norms at the time.
This is a devastating story but O’Brien is a master wordsmith and I was dazzled by the writing while being distressed by the events, that of a young teen in Ireland who gets pregnant in abominable circumstances, then tries to find a way out of it. The church looms large in the novel, and the helplessness this young girl feels is palpable. That she keeps fighting against the forces against her despite the gaslighting is a testament to her strength. Even her one chance to escape is foiled in the most frustrating manner. I’ve been reading about the history of reproductive rights for my own novel, and the stories are never easy. The expected thing to do would be to acquiesce and accept the circumstances, but she chose otherwise. A beautifully written and necessary book.
Down by the River is a newly reissued novel from Edna O’Brien, the author of Girl—“one of the most celebrated writers in the English language” (NPR’s Weekend Edition).
Set in the author’s native Ireland, a powerful and passionate novel about a young girl who becomes pregnant by her father—a situation made worse when it becomes fodder for the gossip mill of church, state, and the town square.
I have spent my career studying the evolution of female biology. My PhD thesis was on the evolution of pregnancy and menstruation. I am currently a researcher at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging studying the evolution of menopause. I also inhabit a female body and have a personal interest in understanding how and why my own body works the way it does. As a lifelong teacher who has taught high school, college, and graduate students, I am passionate about sharing what I know with other women. I hope you enjoy these fascinating books about the female body and its amazing evolutionary history.
There is no organ that I am more fascinated by as a biologist than the placenta, which is the topic of the captivating book Life’s Vital Link.
The placenta is made by the developing fetus, but it evolved to interact intimately with tissues in the mother and to secrete hormones that influence maternal physiology during pregnancy. Loke inspires wonder and curiosity in this book about an organ that is often ignored but truly remarkable and may even hold clues as to how cancer evolved and how we can fight it better.
The development of the placenta was a pivotal event in evolution. Without it, we would still be laying eggs instead of giving birth to live offspring. It represents the critical link between the foetus and the mother, but its character is extraordinary -- it is, in effect, a foreign tissue that invades the mother's body.
Compared to many other animals, the human placenta represents a particularly aggressive body. But how is it managed and controlled? How did such an organ evolve in the first place? And why is it tolerated by the mother? Y.W. Loke explores the nature of the…
When Lara was four years old, her father moved from Rochester, New York, to Anchorage, Alaska, a distance of over 4,000 miles. She spent her childhood chasing after him, flying a quarter of the way around the world to tug at the hem of his jacket.
Puzzles intrigued me since I was a three-year-old. Puzzle pieces that fit into pre-sized spaces. Then, disassembling and reassembling small 3-D animal shapes. Crosswords were next. Finally, Nancy Drew entered my life. I was addicted. Sherlock and Agatha became my mentors. But I loved to paint as well, so art was my first major at Michigan State University. Changed it to advertising in my senior year. Shortly after, Leo Burnett hired me to write print and radio media for Buster Brown shoes. Television was next. I solved many advertising puzzles at Foote, Cone & Belding, but after retiring, mystery re-entered my life when I wrote my first book.
Life throws us many curves. How some of us deal with them at times forces an action that is unforgivable. Others take pains to hide the act and watch as another is punished for it.
However, in some cases circumstances recall the unforgivable act and the realization that the ‘guilty’ one who died in prison was also a victim. No matter how much time may pass, or how close the friendship, the threads of secrets unravel. No protagonist crime fighter here, just a friend searching for the truth to discover the real who and the why.
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THE RICHARD & JUDY PICK
'Deliciously dark and utterly addictive - my favourite Ruth Ware yet' LUCY FOLEY
Everyone wanted her life Someone wanted her dead
It was Hannah who found April's body ten years ago. It was Hannah who didn't question what she saw that day. Did her testimony put an innocent man in prison?
She needs to know the truth.
Even if it means questioning her own friends. Even if it means putting her own life at risk.
