Here are 29 books that For Love of Mother-not fans have personally recommended if you like
For Love of Mother-not.
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In my day job, I’m immersed either with technical equipment or managing people and I enjoy the duality of both challenges. It’s difficult to say which I like best, but because part of my job is people focused, I’ve enjoyed learning to understand the social and interpersonal dynamics between coworkers and clients alike. So books with strong character relationships and stories that are driven by their wants and desires, however right or wrong they may be, are a favorite of mine. The science fiction aspect comes with my love for technology, mainly in music and film and I find many parallels between those arts and writing books.
My sister and I were only close because we’re only two years apart. But recently we’ve had some tragedy in our family, and that brought us closer.
While I was making this list of books, I was reminded of this story and how much I enjoyed it, not just for the prose, which I take notice of and will drop a book if it’s bad, but for that reminder of the brother and sister story here. Not to mention the rescue crew of odd characters which reflects a belief of mine: truth is universal.
Any human or alien can understand compassion and suffering and choose the better of the two.
Fleeing a menace of galactic proportions, a spaceship crashes on an unfamiliar world, leaving the survivors - a pair of children - to the not-so-tender mercies of a medieval, lupine race. Responding to the ship's distress signal, a rescue mission races against time to retrieve the children.
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I’ve been a science fiction fan for as long as I can remember. As someone who never quite felt like I fit in, these stories became a kind of refuge and revelation for me. They taught me that being on the outside looking in can be its own kind of superpower—the ability to see the world differently, to question it, and to imagine something better. I’m drawn to characters who are flawed, searching, and human, because they remind me that courage and belonging are choices we make, not gifts we’re given. That’s the heart of every story I love and the kind I try to write.
When I finished this book, I was a little heartbroken because I didn’t want to leave that crew.
I love how Chambers builds a world that doesn’t put heroes on a pedestal—a world full of ordinary, flawed people trying to understand one another while doing extraordinary work in an uncaring universe.
It taught me about quiet courage, the kind that doesn’t need destiny to feel meaningful. It made me believe again that kindness and curiosity can be forms of rebellion.
I come back to the Wayfarer whenever I need reminding that connection, not perfection, is what makes us human.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILEY'S WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION
'A quietly profound, humane tour de force' Guardian
The beloved debut novel that will restore your faith in humanity
#SmallAngryPlanet
When Rosemary Harper joins the crew of the Wayfarer, she isn't expecting much. The ship, which has seen better days, offers her everything she could possibly want: a small, quiet spot to call home for a while, adventure in far-off corners of the galaxy, and distance from her troubled past.
But Rosemary gets more than she bargained for with the Wayfarer. The crew is a mishmash of species and personalities, from Sissix,…
Of all the intelligent species (both real and fictional), humans fascinate me the most. For me, it’s the creativity and diversity of humans that both divide and unite us. Our eternal struggle to understand one another and overcome our differences fascinates me. I love first-contact science fiction that lets us view the values and behavior of our own species through the lens of true outsiders. I find great value in these parables when they increase self-awareness of our identities and our effect on others.
As a big fan of xenofiction, I appreciated that large parts of the book were written from the perspective of non-humans. I loved the author’s imagination, which, while innovative, never strayed into the implausible.
I was very interested in the timespan of thousands of years and the concept of accelerated evolution, and I found the intelligent, massive spiders to be both creepy and fascinating. For me, Children of Time was a good page-turner and a great read.
Winner of the 30th anniversary Arthur C. Clarke Award for Best Novel
Adrian Tchaikovksy's critically acclaimed, stand-alone novel Children of Time, is the epic story of humanity's battle for survival on a terraformed planet.
Who will inherit this new Earth?
The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age - a world terraformed and prepared for human life.
But all is not right in this new Eden. In the long years since the…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
In my day job, I’m immersed either with technical equipment or managing people and I enjoy the duality of both challenges. It’s difficult to say which I like best, but because part of my job is people focused, I’ve enjoyed learning to understand the social and interpersonal dynamics between coworkers and clients alike. So books with strong character relationships and stories that are driven by their wants and desires, however right or wrong they may be, are a favorite of mine. The science fiction aspect comes with my love for technology, mainly in music and film and I find many parallels between those arts and writing books.
Imagine living on a ship with 1,000 of your relatives. Everyone looks out for each other (mostly) and even when strangers enter the fold, if they’re accepted, they’re treated just like family.
I had a landlord like that. He treated me like a son, and I’ll never forget it, even if my apartment, just like space, was always cold.
As a writer, reader, and human, I’m drawn to complex stories about motherhood. It’s something we can choose, or something that can be forced upon us. Our relationships with our own mothers shape our entire lives. For my book She’s Not Home, I spent a lot of time deepening Sheryl, the mother’s, character. Early versions of the manuscript received criticism for her being too easily villainize. Too two-dimensional. Readers wanted a complex, heartbreaking character. I went to a very painful place to give Sheryl a richer voice. Here are a few books I love that also face the pain and complexity of motherhood and mothering head-on.
I love the way this book peels back the layers of a mother’s choices and the scrutiny she faces for them.
Hillary Jules, the mother at the center of this story, does things some might find unforgivable. And yet we see, through both her and the woman who becomes a surrogate mother figure to one of her children, how we cannot know the full depth of another’s story.
This book reminded me how dangerous it can be to judge from the outside with phrases like “I would never.” Those judgments came much easier before I became a mother myself.
"Beautifully written...a great book club pick!" -- Mary Alice Monroe, New York Times bestselling author
A deeply felt family narrative that examines the fine line between selfishness and what passes for love.
After nearly two hundred years of housing retardants, as they were once known, the Beechwood Institute is closing the doors on its dark history, and the complicated task of reassigning residents has begun. Ella Jules, having arrived at Beechwood at the tender age of eight, must now rely on the state to decide her future. Ella’s aging parents have requested that she be returned to her childhood home,…
I am a professor of visual studies from Canada who has always been interested in dream life—although I’ll admit, it took me a long time to treat this domain as a serious research topic (sometimes the somberness of the academy can impede more adventurous pursuits). I created the Museum of Dreams as a place to explore the social and political significance of these visions, which has led to amazing collaborations with institutions, communities, and individuals around the world. I hope this list has inspired you to attend more closely to your own dreams!
This book broke my heart—in the best possible way.
Imagine a biopic about Scheherazade, but in this version, it’s a coming-of-age story of a Palestinian American woman who grew up between Kuwait, Beirut, Abu Dhabi, Dallas, and Oklahoma City, and is now a 30-something poet living in Brooklyn.
And instead of compulsively telling stories to keep a murderous king enthralled, she compulsively tells stories to hold her marriage together while struggling with addiction and infertility. And her dreams are the backbone holding it all together.
LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD • AN NPR BOOK OF THE YEAR • ONE OF TIME'S 100 MUST-READ BOOKS OF THE YEAR • AN ELECTRIC LITERATURE BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR • The rich and deeply personal debut memoir by award-winning Palestinian American poet and novelist Hala Alyan, whose experience of motherhood via surrogacy forces her to reckon with her own past, and the legacy of her family's exile and displacement, all in the name of a new future.
After a decade of yearning for parenthood, years marked by miscarriage after miscarriage, Hala Alyan makes the…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
My mom says I always had my head in a book. In fact, I got in trouble once for reading a questionable book while sitting in the choir stand at church. I’ve always been a reluctant rule-follower. Reading allowed me to explore worlds that I wasn’t allowed to talk about, let alone visit. Even now, as an adult, my life is pretty boring. But the books I read and the stories I write—that’s where it all goes down, baby!
I adore quirky characters, and the author nails it with the main character, Fern Castle. (Fern immediately reminded me of Gail Honeyman’s Eleanor Oliphant.)
The author dropped hints of a super-dark secret between Fern and her sister, Rose, in the very first chapters, and I was hooked from that moment on. I love complex relationships in the middle of a flashback mystery.
I grew up in a family that avoided expressing any emotion. A happy house was one where anger and frustration were unheard of. Even laughter was suspect. Books allowed me to experience joy and sorrow. Books allowed me to express my feelings, even though it was behind my closed bedroom door, clutching a handful of sodden tissues, exhausted from the novelty of letting my emotions out. These books are not the books of my childhood. Instead, they are the books of the grown-up me who no longer has to hide behind her bedroom door. I think you will love them just as much as I do.
I regret not having tissues ready, because there were many places in this book where I needed them. And that is the kind of book I love to read.
The Choices We Make is a story of friendship that started in childhood and continues into adulthood. One of the women is a mother, the other prays for the experience of holding her own sweet child in her arms. But once she understands that that dream will never materialize, her friend provides a baby through surrogacy.
The story could have ended there, and I would have been satisfied, even though I’m not a fan of happily-ever-afters. Instead, the story continued, and I got a different, perfect ending.
The Choices We Make was inspired by my younger cousins, it's letting them know to love the skin that they were born in. It's also about getting to know someone for the heart that's on the inside. It's not about looking at the color of their skin that is on the outside. It's about knowing what color is and really seeing it. But choosing to be friends with someone because of their character and not judging them because of their skin color, not letting that be the first thing you see. Don't let the skin color of the person stop…
I’m a feminist author, illustrator, and UX designer who thrives on projects that help to improve awareness, healing, and community around marginalized identities. When I became a mother, I realized the importance of teaching and educating children around inclusivity and empathy. When we allow children to open their minds and question stagnant culture, we set the stage for real and meaningful collective growth. I center my work around this goal and focus on inclusive themes, often from perspectives that are unexpected.
This inclusive guide to how every family begins is exactly the book I was looking for to help my daughter understand such important topics. Covering everything from sex, IVF, adoptions, surrogacy, vaginal birth, cesarian, miscarriage, and more. I believe starting these conversations young helps to build trust and confidence in the parent-child relationship. To make a baby you need one egg, one sperm, and one womb.
This inclusive guide to how every family begins is an honest, cheerful tool for conversations between parents and their young ones.
To make a baby you need one egg, one sperm, and one womb. But every family starts in its own special way. This book answers the "Where did I come from?" question no matter who the reader is and how their life began. From all different kinds of conception through pregnancy to the birth itself, this candid and cozy guide is just right for the first conversations that parents will have with their children about how babies are made.
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
I am an animal communicator and author of many books about our deeper connections with the animal world. A powerful dream featuring an archetypal Snake ignited my curiosity about snakes and inspired me to learn more. I immersed myself into the history, biology, and incredible diversity of snakes as well as their role in art, myth, medicine, and dreams. I also lived with two rescue snakes: a shy ball python named Carl and lively corn snake named Chloe. What I found was not only fascinating but life-changing. This book celebrates the mystery of Snake and the undeniable wisdom and healing that it offers our world.
This very engaging, well-written (and weighty!) book shares Harry Green’s personal experiences with snakes, along with an overview of the history, biology, and wide range of snakes—from their unique lifestyles and diet to their behavior and amazing adaptations to living in so many different environments on land, under the earth, in the seas and water, and even gliding through the air.
The text is complemented by color images of many different snake species by internationally-known nature photographers Michael and Patricia Fogden. Overall, an excellent resource for all things Snake!
This is a book about some of nature's most alluring and forbidding creatures, written by a man with an abiding passion for snakes, as well as for science, the fate of the planet, and the wonder of life. Harry Greene presents every facet of the natural history of snakes--their diversity, evolution, and conservation--and at the same time makes a personal statement of why these animals are so compelling. This book provides an up-to-date summary of the biology of snakes on a global basis. Eight chapters are devoted to general biology topics, including anatomy, feeding, venoms, predation and defense, social behavior,…
