For the mom in need of a good read.
All moms are not created equal. Different life stages, interests, and relationships to motherhood prevent us from being one giant tribe. So as you think ahead to Mother’s Day and what to give the moms in your life, don’t succumb to the allure of a one-size-fits-all gift. Think about who they are and find just the right present for them. While it might be hard to find a product that fits their personality, thankfully there’s an abundance of books about motherhood that cater to all types of parents and readers. Pro tip: a book paired with chocolates or flowers is even better.
For more gift ideas, visit our complete Mother’s Day gift guide.
Best Books for Moms
For the knowledge hunter
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center oncologist Elizabeth Comen, MD, shares the backstory of women’s medical history — and how women’s stories were and weren’t examined — to inspire a new paradigm for women’s health, self-improvement, and healthcare. This one’s important and timely, given what we’re continuing to learn about the lack of understanding of the female body.
Jonathan Haidt provides persuasive evidence in his New York Times bestselling book that the explosive growth in smartphone use among teens and tweens corresponds directly to a recent spike in mental illness. He offers actionable steps to address this societal issue to prevent potentially disastrous long-term consequences.
For the mom in the thick of it
Everyone But Myself: A Memoir by Julie Chavez
For anyone who has suffered any type of anxiety or depression after caring for everyone else, Everyone But Myself is the perfect antidote. A USA Today bestseller, this memoir by school librarian Julie Chavez tackles tough subjects in a light, relatable voice with themes of perfectionism, identity, therapy, medicine, and more.
The 5 Principles of Parenting: Your Essential Guide to Raising Good Humans by Dr. Aliza Pressman
Development psychologist, host of the podcast Raising Good Humans, and co-founder of the Mount Sinai Parenting Center Aliza Pressman, Ph.D., offers a simple, science-based framework for the epically important task of raising good humans.
For the traveler
The Paris Novel by Ruth Reichl
When Stella’s mother dies, she’s left with a one-way ticket to Paris. Putting aside her reluctance to go as she reconciles with the after-effects of her traumatic childhood, she finally goes and eventually finds a Dior dress made for her. The dress propels her to accept a new friendship with an elderly gentleman who takes her under his wing and introduces her to the elite. The Paris Novel is a reflection on the meaning of home by your favorite food writer.
For the history lover
The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club by Helen Simonson
This delightful story is a “comedy of manners” set in 1919 when one woman, Constance Haverhill, is “without prospects of a suitor” due to the recent war. Sent as a lady’s companion to an old family friend who’s convalescing at a seaside hotel, she rescues the local barnet’s daughter from a social faux pas and gets caught up in the social life of Hazelbourne-on-the-Sea as she confronts not having the roles she maintained during the war.
The Forbidden Daughter: The True Story of a Holocaust Survivor by Zipora Klein Jakob
Did you know that in 1943, Nazi law prohibited Jewish women from giving birth? Insanity. But in the Kovno Ghetto, Jonah and Tzila Friedman defied the ban. Enter their child Elida, which means “non-birth” in Hebrew. Jonah and Tzila smuggled her out of the ghetto to live with a non-Jewish farm family in Lithuania before she changed families, names, and countries continually just to survive.
For the new mom
Do Mommies Ever Sleep? by Kim Howard
New motherhood is so exhausting, it’s hard not to laugh. This hilarious, rhyming picture book flips the script making it seem the child is wondering why the mom can’t sleep. Did she lose her pacifier?! It’s the perfect gift for the sleep-deprived in need of a laugh and a short read.
Ready or Not: A Novel by Cara Bastone
Book of the Month pick and Apple Books selection Ready or Not grapples with passion as Eve and Shep fall in love. But then there’s the surprise pregnancy from Eve’s former one-night-stand. A light-hearted look at pregnancy and motherhood, this delightful novel is really a primer on accepting love in all forms.
For the music lover
Music and Mind: Harnessing the Arts for Health and Wellness by Renée Fleming
One of the most famous opera singers today, five-time Grammy winner Renée Fleming is a leading advocate in studying the connections between the arts and health. Her research peaks in a 19-episode live-streamed series Music and Mind LIVE with Renée Fleming. In each episode, Fleming connects with experts working at the intersection of music, neuroscience, and healthcare. Now she has turned her research into a comprehensive anthology — and a persuasive argument for this powerful connection.
For the consummate caregiver
When You Care: The Unexpected Magic of Caring for Others by Elissa Strauss
Contributor to The Atlantic and Slate, Elissa Strauss combines research, cultural analysis, and personal narrative to show how important it is to care about caregiving as individuals and as a society. After all, she reminds us, attention to others is a path to meaning and joy.
For the single mom
Doing it All: The Social Power of Single Motherhood by Ruby Russell
In the United States, one in five children is being raised by a single mother. Ruby Russell shares her own experience as a single mom while examining the role in a historical context, critiquing the system that doesn’t give single moms the support they need, and advocating for a new way to connect communities.
For the motherless
Welcome Home, Stranger: A Novel by Kate Christensen
In her eighth novel, Kate Christensen writes about a woman losing her mother in the context of middle age, a 50-something who returns home after the loss and yet is contending with all the funny things in life. Vivid, real, and leaving you with a chuckle, this is an uplifting story about the inevitability of life’s changes and the attitude required to get through.
After Annie: A Novel by Anna Quindlen
Annie dies on her kitchen floor in the opening scene of master storyteller and Pulitzer Prize-winning icon Anna Quindlen’s latest bestselling work. What follows is how one family and one community deal with that unexpected loss and how the bottom can drop out when the centerpiece of a life, and all the unspoken work and love, disappears.
Did I Ever Tell You? A Memoir by Genevieve “Gwen” Kingston
Gwen Kingston’s dying mother left her gifts that would carry her through age 30. In so doing, Gwen could mete out doses of her late mother throughout her young adulthood, clinging to her mother’s memory and voice, and feeling her love, all of which she chronicles in this wonderful memoir. (This is the Zibby’s Book Club pick for June.)
For the romantic
One Last Shot: A Novel by Betty Cayouette
Betty Cayouette, the viral creator of @bettysbooklist, has written a bookstagram-worthy story of her own about a somehow relatable(!) supermodel and a photographer who make a marriage pact, only to meet again 10 years later on the job in Cinque Terre, Italy. Unfortunately, their feelings for each other might not be mutual, and their connection is put to the test during this trip.
For the literary mystery lover (and Sarah Jessica Parker fan)
Women and Children First: A Novel by Alina Grabowski
Alina Grabowski’s novel is set in a small, decaying, coastal Massachusetts town where a young girl’s death at a house party takes place. As 10 local girls and women tell the story, the reader is left concerned about safety and sexuality in the crazy world we live in today, meditating on grief and tragedy, class, and ambition. Published by Sarah Jessica Parker’s imprint, Women and Children First will excite the most discerning mom.
For the art lover
The Mother of All Things: A Novel by Alexis Landau
An art history professor has to deal with her family responsibilities when an unexpected interaction with her feminist mentor from college upends everything.
For the international mom
Mother Doll: A Novel by Katya Apekina
A story about four generations of mothers and daughters set against Russian history, Mother Doll connects generations across time and place thanks to the work of a medium. Secrets that have haunted the family — starting with the family’s escape from the Soviet Union in the mid-‘80s — seep out.
Where Rivers Part: A Story of My Mother’s Life by Kao Kalia Yang
Kao Kalia Yang writes openly and beautifully about her Hmong family and her mother’s refugee life in vivid detail, truly exhibiting what courage looks like on the page.
Daughters of Shandong: A Novel by Eve J. Chung
A mother and her daughters flee China for Taiwan in Daughters of Shandong. Inspired by author Eve J. Chung’s true family story, it’s a fictionalized version of what happened when Eve’s grandmother was abandoned by her wealthy family when the Communists took over China.
For the thriller lover
Nowhere Like Home: A Novel by Sara Shepard
New York Times bestselling author of the Pretty Little Liars series, Sara Shepard has set her latest book on a “mommune,” a community for single moms, in a razor-sharp examination of female friendships, motherhood, and trauma. Rhiannon disappeared years ago and ended up in a mothers-only refuge in Arizona. She invites her friend Lenna to join, which she does happily until she notices she just might be locked in…
For the second act seeker
Leaving: A Novel by Roxana Robinson
Roxana Robinson’s prose is so vivid, place-specific, and concrete, you’ll feel like you walked into her main character’s kitchen. In Leaving, a woman of a certain age reconnects with a past love and has a reawakening in all senses. But when her grown children get involved and her new paramour copes with her own marriage’s demise, she has to decide which path to follow.
Mother Island: A Daughter Claims Puerto Rico by Jamie Figueroa
Jamie Figueroa’s mother assimilated in the suburbs of Ohio after arriving from Puerto Rico. Jamie saw her mother’s failed marriages up close. She writes about her own marriage to an older man and how her work as a massage therapist helped with her own body trauma. She also muses about how becoming a mother has changed her relationship with her family of origin in the lyrically written reflection on the meaning of home and family.
For the doctor
Legacy: A Black Physician Reckons with Racism in Medicine by Dr. Uché Blackstock
New York Times bestselling book Legacy by Uché Blackstock, MD, shines a light on her relationship with her trailblazing mother and how she and her twin sister found their way under the shadow of their mom’s success and the barriers constructed around their race. Uche forged ahead as did her mom and sister, showing no one can be told “no.”
For the adoptive mom
Family Family by Laurie Frankel
Family Family by Laurie Frankel tackles fame, cancel culture, and the secrets around adoption in a delightful, funny, voice-y story involving the paparazzi, protestors, and love.
Regular Katie Couric Media contributor Zibby Owens is the bestselling author of Blank: A Novel, host of award-winning podcast Moms Don’t Have Time to Read Books, CEO of Zibby Books publishing house, and owner of Zibby’s Bookshop in Santa Monica, CA. Follow her on Substack and Instagram where she tells it like it is.
