30 books like The Weed Lady

By Shea R. Embry,

Here are 30 books that The Weed Lady fans have personally recommended if you like The Weed Lady. 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 Honeysuckle Season

Kay Watkins Author Of Family of the Heart

From my list on women's struggles with reproduction issues.

Why am I passionate about this?

Although I have never been faced with an unwanted pregnancy, I lived through an era when women did not have easy choices available to them. Abortions were illegal while there was also tremendous stigma attached to those who choose to give their babies up for adoption or even decided to raise their babies without a male involved. Many times, the family of origin refused to support these women, turning their back on them. Most often, the men were not held accountable and disappeared with no further responsibilities.

Kay's book list on women's struggles with reproduction issues

Kay Watkins Why did Kay love this book?

The characters in Mary Ellen Taylor’s book are compelling, challenging, and even sad as they are trapped by society’s expectations of them. The main characters are at the sacrifice of the men who are supposed to take care of them. Their struggles in life are unique to women and not easily overcome.

By Mary Ellen Taylor,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

An Amazon Charts Bestseller.

From bestselling author Mary Ellen Taylor comes a story about profound loss, hard truths, and an overgrown greenhouse full of old secrets.

Adrift in the wake of her father's death, a failed marriage, and multiple miscarriages, Libby McKenzie feels truly alone. Though her new life as a wedding photographer provides a semblance of purpose, it's also a distraction from her profound pain.

When asked to photograph a wedding at the historic Woodmont estate, Libby meets the owner, Elaine Grant. Hoping to open Woodmont to the public, Elaine has employed young widower Colton Reese to help restore…


Book cover of The Lost Child of Philomena Lee: A Mother, Her Son and a Fifty Year Search

Kay Watkins Author Of Family of the Heart

From my list on women's struggles with reproduction issues.

Why am I passionate about this?

Although I have never been faced with an unwanted pregnancy, I lived through an era when women did not have easy choices available to them. Abortions were illegal while there was also tremendous stigma attached to those who choose to give their babies up for adoption or even decided to raise their babies without a male involved. Many times, the family of origin refused to support these women, turning their back on them. Most often, the men were not held accountable and disappeared with no further responsibilities.

Kay's book list on women's struggles with reproduction issues

Kay Watkins Why did Kay love this book?

Although I converted to Catholicism as a young mother, I had no idea this torture was undertaken in the 1940s by Irish Catholic nuns and priests who took in young teens (or younger) women who found themselves pregnant. They sold the babies to rich Americans while simultaneously making the young women work off the debt they were told they incurred from their imprisonment. The environment was hostile, unsympathetic, and heartbreaking.

By Martin Sixsmith,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Lost Child of Philomena Lee as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

When she fell pregnant as a teenager in Ireland in 1952, Philomena Lee was sent to the convent at Roscrea in Co. Tipperary to be looked after as a fallen woman. She cared for her baby for three years until the Church took him from her and sold him, like countless others, to America for adoption. Coerced into signing a document promising never to attempt to see her child again, she nonetheless spent the next fifty years secretly searching for him, unaware that he was searching for her from across the Atlantic.

Philomena's son, renamed Michael Hess, grew up to…


Book cover of More Harm Than Good

Kay Watkins Author Of Family of the Heart

From my list on women's struggles with reproduction issues.

Why am I passionate about this?

Although I have never been faced with an unwanted pregnancy, I lived through an era when women did not have easy choices available to them. Abortions were illegal while there was also tremendous stigma attached to those who choose to give their babies up for adoption or even decided to raise their babies without a male involved. Many times, the family of origin refused to support these women, turning their back on them. Most often, the men were not held accountable and disappeared with no further responsibilities.

Kay's book list on women's struggles with reproduction issues

Kay Watkins Why did Kay love this book?

This series deeply involves an Irish family during World War II. A young woman finds herself in love with the town gentry but when she discovers she is pregnant, the young man’s father convinces him that she is a whore, a loose woman, and not solely in love with him. She goes to a family friend’s home in Wales to have the baby and finds herself in love with the son of the family, a Jewish doctor who immigrates to her home and serves as the town doctor. There are many complications and prejudices to overcome in this moving tale.

By Jean Grainger,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked More Harm Than Good as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Kilteegan Bridge, Ireland 1974

For each member of the O’Sullivan family there are turbulent times ahead.

Eli’s need to do his best for his patients is a cause for a bitter divide in the community. Emmet seems hell bent on going down a path in life his parents dread but they’re unable to stop him. Jack’s life and liberty are in grave peril as his secret faces exposure, while Emily’s troubles are, it seems only just beginning with the return of someone she would much rather had disappeared forever. And Maria must decide, is blood really thicker than water, and…


Book cover of Holidays on the Ranch

Kay Watkins Author Of Family of the Heart

From my list on women's struggles with reproduction issues.

Why am I passionate about this?

Although I have never been faced with an unwanted pregnancy, I lived through an era when women did not have easy choices available to them. Abortions were illegal while there was also tremendous stigma attached to those who choose to give their babies up for adoption or even decided to raise their babies without a male involved. Many times, the family of origin refused to support these women, turning their back on them. Most often, the men were not held accountable and disappeared with no further responsibilities.

Kay's book list on women's struggles with reproduction issues

Kay Watkins Why did Kay love this book?

A young woman, Callie finds herself needing to stay at Finn’s ranch as her nephew needs protective custody having witnessed a violent murder. Rather than going into Witness Protection she finds solace and help with the man she served in Afghanistan with (he a sniper; her, his spotter). As they fall in love now that they are not restricted by their career in the Army, they expand the family, aiding the woman who sold Finn the ranch, making a home for Callie’s nephew and three siblings he befriends at school who are trapped in the foster care system. Family is at the heart of this book as Callie and Finn fall deeply in love, overcoming their fears and anxieties when it comes to trusting and committing to someone in a deep, fulfilling relationship.

By Carolyn Brown,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Holidays on the Ranch as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A long-standing feud, an unlikely love story, and New York Times bestselling author Carolyn Brown's Texas twang make for a lively Christmas romance at the ranch! Perfect for fans looking for their next Christmas classic:Romance between old friendsLots of hot cowboy lovin'Characters that jump off the pageWacky, small-town neighborsAuthentic Southern voice and inimitable sassOut of the army and looking for some peace and quiet this Christmas, former sniper Finn O'Donnell heads to the sleepy town of Burnt Boot, Texas. But Finn hasn't spent even one night at his new ranch when an army SUV pulls into the driveway and a…


Book cover of Van Gogh on Demand: China and the Readymade

David Joselit Author Of Heritage and Debt: Art in Globalization

From my list on art and globalization.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have been professionally involved with contemporary art since the 1980s, when I was a curator at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. In the forty years since I've seen an enormous shift in the orientation of American curators and scholars from Western art to a global perspective. After earning my PhD at Harvard, and writing several books on contemporary art, I wanted to tackle the challenge of a truly comparative contemporary art history. To do so, I've depended on the burgeoning scholarship from a new more diverse generation of art historians, as well as on many decades of travel and research. My book Heritage and Debt is an attempt to synthesize that knowledge. 

David's book list on art and globalization

David Joselit Why did David love this book?

This engaging book looks at globalization and art from a perspective well beyond the conventional art world. Wong analyzes the work of artists in the Chinese "urban village" of Dafen where some five million paintings are produced a year–copies of Western masterpieces. Rather than viewing this industry condescendingly, Wong takes Dafen as a laboratory for understanding what qualities make an artist, and how creativity exists even in contexts of reproduction and replication. 

By Winnie Won Yin Wong,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Van Gogh on Demand as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In the Guangdong province in southeastern China lies Dafen, a village that houses thousands of workers who paint Van Goghs, Da Vincis, Warhols, and other Western masterpieces, producing an astonishing five million paintings a year. To write about life and work in Dafen, Winnie Wong infiltrated this world, investigating the claims of conceptual artists who made projects there; working as a dealer; apprenticing as a painter; surveying merchants in Europe, Asia, and America; establishing relationships with local leaders; and organizing a conceptual art show for the Shanghai World Expo. The result is Van Gogh on Demand, a fascinating book about…


Book cover of Promiscuity: An Evolutionary History of Sperm Competition

Simon Lailvaux Author Of Feats of Strength: How Evolution Shapes Animal Athletic Abilities

From my list on change the way you think about biology.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a scientist and biologist. Learning about evolution changed my life and put me on a path to studying it as a career. As a child, I was a voracious reader, and as an undergraduate, I read every popular science book on biology I could get my hands on. In retrospect, those books were almost as important to my education as anything I learned in a lab or lecture theatre. When writing for a general audience, I try to convey the same sense of wonder and enthusiasm for science that drives me to this day.

Simon's book list on change the way you think about biology

Simon Lailvaux Why did Simon love this book?

After 25 years as a professional biologist(!), it’s seldom that I come across a book about biology that blows my mind, but this book absolutely did. Both scientists and laymen are mostly interested in the flashy parts of male-male competition and female choice that we can readily observe, but the parts of it that go on “behind the scenes”—that is to say, inside the female reproductive tract—are even more fascinating. 

I read this book only relatively recently since I thought I was already pretty well informed about the ins and outs of sperm competition. I was wrong. Sperm competition is even crazier than I had imagined, and Birkhead writes about it brilliantly. 

By Tim Birkhead,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Males are promiscuous and ferociously competitive. Females--both human and of other species--are naturally monogamous. That at least is what the study of sexual behavior after Darwin assumed, perhaps because it was written by men. Only in recent years has this version of events been challenged. Females, it has become clear, are remarkably promiscuous and have evolved an astonishing array of strategies, employed both before and after copulation, to determine exactly who will father their offspring.

Tim Birkhead reveals a wonderful world in which males and females vie with each other as they strive to maximize their reproductive success. Both sexes…


Book cover of It's So Amazing! A Book about Eggs, Sperm, Birth, Babies, and Families

Rachel Ginocchio Author Of Roads to Family: All the Ways We Come to Be

From my list on anatomy, modern human reproduction, and family.

Why am I passionate about this?

For as long as I can remember, my parents answered any/all of my questions about the body, puberty, and sex; often giving me more information than I actually wanted! So when friends asked me questions, I was always eager to pass on my knowledge. Who knew that years later, it would land me a master’s degree in public health (MPH), jobs in sexuality health education, and a passion for writing about human reproduction and family formation? Plus, I have personal experience on the topic: I come from a three-generation family created through adoption and foster care; and overcame the trials and tribulations of infertility with the use of assisted reproduction. 

Rachel's book list on anatomy, modern human reproduction, and family

Rachel Ginocchio Why did Rachel love this book?

When I first sat down to fully explain human reproduction to my own child, I grabbed It’s So Amazing because it included explanations of insemination and IVF – subjects that most books in the genre don’t explain.

The book also covers many topics leading up to and after conception: anatomy, puberty, gestation, birth, genetics, and family. Its graphic-novel format enables readers to digest the information-rich content in bite-sized pieces, at their own pace. The book is funny and warm, and normalizes kids’ curiosity about the body.

There are two other books in this series: It’s Not the Stork and It’s Perfectly Normal. They are all great books to add to any family’s collection. 

By Robie H. Harris, Michael Emberley (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked It's So Amazing! A Book about Eggs, Sperm, Birth, Babies, and Families as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 7, 8, 9, and 10.

What is this book about?

From the trusted team of Robie H. Harris and Michael Emberley, this classic resource for younger children receives its most ambitious update yet.

How does a baby begin and how is it born? How did I begin? Why are some parts of kids’ bodies different from some parts of other kids’ bodies? Most younger kids have questions about reproduction, babies, love, sex, and gender too. Some also have concerns. For over twenty years, It’s So Amazing! has provided children age seven and up with the honest answers they’re looking for through age-appropriate, reassuring words and accurate, up-to-date, inclusive art. Throughout…


Book cover of What Will Grow?

Kari Percival Author Of How to Say Hello to a Worm: A First Guide to Outside

From my list on for toddlers on why and how to grow a food garden.

Why am I passionate about this?

When offered a plot at the community garden, I thought it would be fun to invite other families to learn to grow food together. As a science teacher, I knew that for toddlers, digging in the dirt and growing plants for food could plant seeds for a life-long love of exploring nature, hands-on science inquiry, environmental stewardship, and joy in healthy eating. As we gardened, I noticed what questions children and their parents had, and how we found the answers together. I wrote the picture book How to Say Hello to A Worm: A First Guide to Outside to inspire more kids and their parents to get their hands dirty. 

Kari's book list on for toddlers on why and how to grow a food garden

Kari Percival Why did Kari love this book?

What Will Grow? makes a game out of observing and guessing the identities of seeds and sprouting plants: preschoolers get to guess based on observing picture clues and hearing rhyming riddles before lifting the flaps to reveal each answer. This book builds connections between the stage of garden plants' development and also provides practice in building science skills. 

By Jennifer Ward, Susie Ghahremani (illustrator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked What Will Grow? as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

* "An enchanting vision." --Publishers Weekly, starred review

From the team behind the gorgeous What Will Hatch? comes a companion book all about seeds and the plants that grow from them--and featuring four pull-out gatefolds.

Seeds can be big or small, round or pointy, and all sorts of colors. They can become flowers, trees, fruits, or vegetables, and they sprout all times of year, during spring, summer, fall, and winter.

But all seeds have one thing in common--inside each is a new plant life waiting to emerge. What kind of plant will bloom? Wait and see what will grow!

Including…


Book cover of Mommy Laid An Egg: Or, Where Do Babies Come From?

Sara Zaske Author Of Achtung Baby: An American Mom on the German Art of Raising Self-Reliant Children

From my list on raising self-reliant children.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a writer who lived in Germany for more than six years with my family. That experience opened my eyes to a different way of parenting in a country that had learned hard lessons about too much authoritarian control. It also taught me that much of what we believe is “true” about raising kids is actually cultural—and therefore, can be changed. In addition to my book about raising kids in Germany, Achtung Baby, I’ve written extensively on raising self-reliant kids, including articles in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Time.com among others.

Sara's book list on raising self-reliant children

Sara Zaske Why did Sara love this book?

When my daughter was in first grade in Germany, her teacher read this book to her entire class. Sex education is considered a right in Germany since knowing how your body works is essential for your reproductive health. In the U.S. it’s left to us as parents to teach sex ed to our kids—which I’d argue is less than ideal, given the high costs of keeping kids ignorant. (The U.S. has higher rates of teen AIDS, teen pregnancy, and abortion than Germany.) If you don’t know how to broach this subject, this book is a good, age-appropriate, place to start when your young kids first begin asking questions.

By Babette Cole,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Mommy Laid An Egg as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Two children explain to their parents, using their own drawings, where babies come from.


Book cover of Sex in the Sea: Our Intimate Connection with Sex-Changing Fish, Romantic Lobsters, Kinky Squid, and Other Salty Erotica of the Deep

Danna Staaf Author Of Nursery Earth: The Hidden World of Baby Animals and the Amazing Ingenuity of Life

From my list on babies and parenthood throughout the animal kingdom.

Why am I passionate about this?

Like most children, I adored baby animals from an early age. I bonded deeply with a pet kitten; I campaigned (unsuccessfully but perennially) for a puppy; I delighted in caterpillars. In college, my biology classes introduced me to a profusion of marine larval forms, and a fascination with the true diversity of animal babies fully gripped me. I eventually earned a PhD in the biology of squid babies and, shortly afterward, produced two human babies of my own. I now live with my human family, a cat, and a garden full of grubs, caterpillars, maggots, and innumerable other babies. I read and write about science and nature, especially the intersection of the weird and the adorable.

Danna's book list on babies and parenthood throughout the animal kingdom

Danna Staaf Why did Danna love this book?

Similar to Dr. Tatiana’s Sex Advice, this book made me laugh and gasp at scandalous true stories of reproductive biology. What really captured my attention, though, were the unexpected ways that human actions are affecting the courtship, mating, and spawning of animals that might seem beyond our reach.

Knowing that we can unintentionally inhibit the intimate lives of other species through pollution and climate change really brings home the importance of reforming our behavior.

By Marah J. Hardt,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Forget the Kama Sutra. When it comes to inventive sex acts, just look to the sea. There we find the elaborate mating rituals of armored lobsters; giant right whales engaging in a lively threesome whilst holding their breath; full moon sex parties of groupers and daily mating blitzes by blueheaded wrasse. Deep-sea squid perform inverted 69s, while hermaphrodite sea slugs link up in giant sex loops. From doubly endowed sharks to the maze-like vaginas of some whales, Sex in the Sea is a journey unlike any other to explore the staggering ways life begets life beneath the waves. Beyond a…


Book cover of Honeysuckle Season
Book cover of The Lost Child of Philomena Lee: A Mother, Her Son and a Fifty Year Search
Book cover of More Harm Than Good

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Interested in reproduction, Ireland, and Broadway musicals?

Reproduction 12 books
Ireland 308 books
Broadway Musicals 162 books