A SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'An unadulterated delight...suffused with a sense of love and very, very funny' Maggie O'Farrell It's 2004 and Anne Enright, one of Ireland's most remarkable writers, has just had two babies: a girl and a boy. Making Babies, is the intimate, engaging, and very funny record of the journey from early pregnancy to age two. Written in dispatches, typed with a sleeping baby in the room, it has the rush of good news - full of the mess, the glory, and the raw shock of it all. An antidote to the high-minded, polemical 'How-to' baby manuals, Making Babies also bears a visceral and dreamlike witness to the first years of parenthood. Anne Enright wrote the truth of it as it happened, because, for these months and years, it is impossible for a woman to lie.

'Fizzingly entertaining. Reading it is like having a conversation with your funniest friend. Enright has pulled off that rarest of tricks: writing brilliantly about happiness.' Anne Enright, one of Ireland's most remarkable writers, has just had two babies: a girl and a boy. Her new book, Making Babies, is the intimate, engaging, and very funny record of the journey from early pregnancy to age two. Written in dispatches, typed with a sleeping baby in the room, it has the rush of good news - full of the mess, the glory, and the raw shock of it all. An antidote to the high-minded, polemical 'How-to' baby manuals, Making Babies also bears a visceral and dreamlike witness to the first years of parenthood. Anne Enright wrote the truth of it as it happened, because, for these months and years, it is impossible for a woman to lie.

A San Francisco Chronicle Lit Pick "Much of the book is astonishingly funny; the rest would break your heart." —Colm Tóibín Anne Enright is one of the most acclaimed novelists of her generation. The Gathering won the 2007 Man Booker Prize, and her follow-up novel, The Forgotten Waltz, garnered universal praise for her luminous language and deep insight into relationships. Now, in Making Babies, Enright offers a new kind of memoir: an unapologetic look at the very personal experience of becoming a mother. With a refreshing no-nonsense attitude, Enright opens up about the birth and first two years of her children’s lives. Enright was married for eighteen years before she and her husband Martin, a playwright, decided to have children. Already a confident, successful writer, Enright continued to work in her native Ireland after each of her two babies was born. While each baby slept, those first two years of life, Enright wrote, in dispatches, about the mess, the glory, and the raw shock of motherhood. Here, unfiltered and irreverent, are Enright’s keen reactions to the pains of pregnancy, the joys of breast milk, and the all-too-common pressures to be the “perfect” parent. Supremely observant and endlessly quizzical, Enright is never saccharine, always witty, but also deeply loving. Already a bestseller in the UK, Making Babies brings Enright’s autobiographical writing to American readers for the first time. Tender and candid, it captures beautifully just what it’s like for a working woman to become a mother. The result is a moving chronicle of parenthood from one of the most distinctive and gifted authors writing today.

A provocative and deeply important study of women’s lives, women’s choices—and an ‘unspoken taboo’—that questions the societal pressures forcing women into motherhood Women who opt not to be mothers are frequently warned that they will regret their decision later in life, yet we rarely talk about the possibility that the opposite might also be true—that women who have children might regret it. Drawing on years of research interviewing women from a variety of socioeconomic, educational, and professional backgrounds, sociologist Orna Donath treats regret as a feminist issue: as regret marks the road not taken, we need to consider whether alternative paths for women currently are blocked off. She asks that we pay attention to what is forbidden by rules governing motherhood, time, and emotion, including the cultural assumption that motherhood is a “natural” role for women—for the sake of all women, not just those who regret becoming mothers. If we are disturbed by the idea that a woman might regret becoming a mother, Donath says, our response should not be to silence and shame these women; rather, we need to ask honest and difficult questions about how society pushes women into motherhood and why those who reconsider it are still seen as a danger to the status quo. Groundbreaking, thoughtful, and provocative, this is an especially needed book in our current political climate, as women's reproductive rights continue to be at the forefront of national debates.

Join a respected Jungian analyst for a deep dive into the emotional and symbolic journey of motherhood. Motherhood is the true hero’s journey—which is to say that it can be as harrowing as it is joyful, and enlightening as it is exhausting. For Jungian psychoanalyst Lisa Marchiano, this journey is not just an adventure of diaper bags and parent-teacher conferences, but one of intense self-discovery. In Motherhood, Marchiano draws from a deep well of Jungian analysis and symbolic research to present a collection of fairy tales, myths, and fables that evoke the spiritual arc of raising a child from infancy through adulthood. After all, this kind of storytelling has always been one of the most important conduits of humanity’s collective wisdom—and Marchiano provides each tale alongside keen insights into the timeless archetypes they represent. Balanced with real-life case stories from Lisa’s own practice and in-depth questions for personal reflection, Motherhood explores how events like pregnancy, the calamities of childhood, and the empty-nest experience are invitations to an adventure into the wild frontier of your own soul. Here you will discover: • How the challenges of motherhood send you on journeys into your innermost source • Seeing the value of conflict with your child even while working to solve it • “The dark passage” of confronting and dispelling the energy of childhood wounds • “The thirteenth fairy”—how to recognize when we are resisting inconvenient or uncomfortable truths • Understanding how anger, rage, and aggression arise in parental relationships • Recognizing the ways that you have been taught to ignore your deepest instincts • How to navigate the inevitable periods of grief that accompany your child’s many life changes • Why much of successful mothering requires surrendering your sense of control With Lisa’s gentle but straightforward guidance, you’ll return from this inner journey in possession of the treasured knowledge needed to clarify your values, embrace your disowned parts, and claim the mantle of motherhood in the full bloom of your empowerment.

Denise Schipani shares her secret to being a 'Mean Mom,' and why it's better for your kids–and for you–in the long run." —Jen Singer, author You're a Good Mom (and Your Kids Aren't So Bad Either) "'Mean' moms make kids learn to do things for themselves from making breakfast to finding inner peace. I'm hoping I'm a little meaner myself after reading this book." —Lenore Skenazy, founder of the book and blog Free–Range Kids "I've chosen to be the kind of mother I feel is best, and that kind of mother is mean." MEAN MOMS SAY NO. MEAN MOMS ARE CONSISTENT. MEAN MOMS TRUST THEMSELVES. MEAN MOMS DON'T CARE WHAT EVERYONE ELSE IS DOING. MEAN MOMS TEACH KIDS THE LIFE SKILLS THEY NEED TO KNOW. MEAN MOMS SLOW IT DOWN. MEAN MOMS FAIL THEIR KIDS A LITTLE BIT EVERY DAY. And mean moms prepare their kids for the world, not the world for their kids, raising children into adults who know how to make themselves happy. Mean Moms Rule. And their kids benefit Denise Schipani writes about all things mean and motherly at www.confessionsofameanmommy.com

In Misconceptions, bestselling author Naomi Wolf she demythologizes motherhood and reveals the dangers of common assumptions about childbirth. With uncompromising honesty she describes how hormones eroded her sense of independence, ultrasounds tested her commitment to abortion rights, and the keepers of the OB/GYN establishment lacked compassion. The weeks after her first daughter’s birth taught her how society, employers, and even husbands can manipulate new mothers. She had bewildering post partum depression, but learned that a surprisingly high percentage of women experience it. Wolf’s courageous willingness to talk about the unexpected difficulties of childbirth will help every woman become a more knowledgeable planner of her pregnancy and better prepare her for the challenges of balancing a career, freedom, and a growing family. Invaluable in its advice to parents, Misconceptions speaks to anyone connected–personally, medically, or professionally–to a new mother.