Must-Read Books About Motherhood

While nothing can substitute for the listening ear of a sympathetic girlfriend, diving into a book about motherhood is definitely the next best thing (especially if you simultaneously hop into the tub while enjoying the book in question!) Here is a list of books about motherhood that are quite simply not to be missed.

1. The Mask of Motherhood: How Becoming a Mother Changes Our Lives and Why We Never Talk About It
   By Susan Maushart (Penguin Books).

   The previously unwritten guide to becoming a mom that tackles previously taboo topics related to pregnancy, birth, and motherhood. The author recalls a conversation from her pre-mom days in which her sister—a brand new mom—declared, "I'm going to tell you this now, and I want you to remember it. Everyone lies. Do you hear me? Everyone lies about what it's like to have a baby. Don't listen to them. Just watch me, and remember."

2. Celebrating Motherhood: A Comforting Companion for Every Expecting Mother
   By Andrea Alban Gosline and Lisa Burnett Bossi with Ame Mahler Beanland (Conari Press).

   Celebrating Motherhood combines line drawings, photography, poetry, and musings about motherhood in a book that is designed to be enjoyed
   By the mother-to-be over the course of her pregnancy.

   The book is divided into nine themes: Anticipate, Flourish, Nurture, Wonder, Voice, Stand, Listen, Envision, and Embrace.

3. The Mother of All Baby Books: The Ultimate Guide to Your Baby's First Year
   By Ann Douglas (Wiley).

   As much a roadmap through the first year of motherhood as it is a guide to baby's first year, The Mother of All Baby Books tackles emotional and physical health issues, relationship adjustments, and other key issues in a new mom's world. The emphasis is on equipping the new mother with strategies that will allow her to sidestep as many road bumps as possible as she arrives on Motherhood Avenue.

4. Mother Nurture: A Mother’s Guide to Health in Body, Mind, and Intimate Relationships
   By Rick Hanson, PhD, Jan Hanson, and Ricki Pollycove, MD (Penguin Books).

   Feel like you’re running on empty? You’re not alone. In fact, this condition is so common that it’s actually got its own name—Depleted Mother Syndrome. And if you want to know what you can do to combat Depleted Mother Syndrome, treat Mother Nurture as required reading.

5. As Good as I Could Be: A Memoir of Raising Wonderful Children in Difficult Times
   By Susan Cheever (Washington Square Press).

   Susan Cheever tackles the messy business of family life with her characteristic honesty, delivering up a memoir that gives parents permission to be imperfect while challenging them to parent consciously and deliberately.

6. Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son’s First Year
   By Anne Lamott (Ballantine Books).

   Anne Lamott was one of the pioneers of the genre that is now known of the momoir—the "mom memoir"—and few carry off the momoir as poignantly or as hilariously as she does. If you haven’t discovered this wonderful writer yet, you’re in for a treat. Make Operating Instructions your Mother’s Day gift to yourself!

7. Waiting for Birdy: A Year of Frantic Tedium, Neurotic Angst, and the Wild Magic of Growing a Family
   By Catherine Newman (Penguin Books).

   A funny and honest pregnancy momoir. Newman tells us that the first trimester is "about as much fun as a sharp stick in the eye" and that we should be told more about pregnancy revulsions than pregnancy cravings. "It's not simply that I can't eat [certain foods] now; it's that I wish I'd never eaten them."

8. It Could Happen to You: Diary of a Pregnancy and Beyond
   By Martha Brockenbrough (Andrews McMeel Publishing).

   Martha Brockenbrough takes a definite "tell all" approach in her pregnancy memoir—with often hilarious results. Just a few pages into the book, you find out, for example, that she took to mail ordering pregnancy tests off the Internet because she didn’t want to give the folks at the local drugstore any fodder for the gossip mill—and that she and her husband got the giggles in childbirth class when it came time to watch the childbirth videos.

9. Mother Shock: Tales from the First Year and Beyond
   By Andrea J. Buchanan (Seal Press).

   "Imagine you have just moved to a foreign country. You have the worst case of jet lag ever." These are the opening lines of Andrea J. Buchanan’s honest account of her own time in the motherhood trenches. She’s not afraid to dish the dirt on the evil advice givers who are waiting to bombard you at every turn, separation anxiety (she’s talking about mom’s in this case—not baby’s), and the hell that is sleep deprivation.

10. The Complete Single Mother: Reassuring Answers to Your Most Challenging Concerns
    By Andrea Engber and Leah Klungness, PhD (Adams Media).

    Single moms sometimes complain—and often rightly so—that mainstream mothering guides frequently leave them in the lurch by assuming that every mom is a married mom. The Complete Single Mother zeroes in on the unique challenges faced by single moms. The result is a fabulously comprehensive must-read guide for single moms.