Malaprop’s Mother’s Day Buying Guide

My birthday falls near or on Mother’s Day every year, which I like to think of as either a made-to-order gift or a cosmic joke for my dear mother (mostly it’s the first one. I think.).

It only makes sense that they put a day celebrating all of the hard work moms do in the middle of Spring, which is, after all, the Most Pleasant Season. You could just go out and pick a few flowers from your neighbor’s yard to give to mom.

Or, you could pair those flowers with a little something for her to read while she hides out in the bath with a glass of wine. This Mother’s Day, why not pick up a hand-selected, vetted title from us? We’ve got something for everyone, including the pickiest of matriarchs.

To help you figure out which book will have your mom signing your praises from on high, I’ve created a curated list of books that all types of mothers will enjoy. Read on to find your mother’s perfect match. And if you are a mom, print this list out and put it somewhere obvious for your family to find. Be sure to circle the one you want.

4th triFor the New Mom

The 4th Trimester Body Project is a beautiful book celebrating new motherhood through pictures and stories of mothers and children from around the world. It’s a gorgeous, deeply authentic and heartful book that compiles the experiences of moms through pregnancy and childbirth; through pain, trauma, love, and healing. The book is an extension of photographer Ashlee Wells’ online project of the same name.

For the Bohemian Artist

Your mom has always been up to amazing stuff. She introduced you to all of your favorite music and gave you a copy of On the Road when you turned 12, and you weren’t even cool enough to understand it. She’s always ahead of the curve and on to the newest thing (that you didn’t even know was a thing yet). She both is—and is constantly in search of—inspiration.

This Mother’s Day, give her a copy of Gill Heriz’s A Woman’s Huts and Hideaways, a pictorial guide to over 40 amazing sheds, cabins, boathouses, gypsy caravans, and other rooms of one’s own that will inspire her to create (or maybe redecorate) her favorite spot.

The book includes anecdotes from the owners of said hideaways, like Anita, a former computer clerk who now works as a pet massage practitioner and aromatherapist and whose gorgeous tiny home is decorated with exotic Indian fabrics.

For the Snarky Fashionista

Cultural critic and former NY Times Critical Shopper Cintra Wilson’s irreverent, hilarious history of American fashion, Fear and Clothing, is a gonzo journalistic account of style trends from explicit belt buckles to “mildly subversive” zebra print t-shirts from J.C. Penney.

Wilson is incredibly witty (she titles each area she visits in particularly clever ways: Miami is “The Sand Belt,” Utah is “The Chastity Belt”) and takes no prisoners in her anthropological excavations and analyses of how our fashion choices “tell everyone instantly who we are, where we came from, where we feel we belong, what we want, where we are going, and how we expect to be treated when we get there.” Now your mom will have even more ammunition when she lovingly criticizes your wardrobe choices.

For the Perfectionist

Your mom actually loves to clean. Like, really. The house is always spotless, the hum of the vacuum puts you to sleep, and there’s always a fresh bouquet on the table. She’s got her eye on perfection, and nothing less will do. She’s already read and implemented marie kondo’s life-changing magic of tidying up—three times. It’s time for the sequel: spark joy: an illustrated master class on the art of organizing and tidying up. With tips on everything from whether to save instruction manuals to how to shelve books to what to do with plastic grocery bags, it gets into the nitty gritty of cleaning in a way only matched by a toothbrush scrubbing bathroom tiles.

For the Homesteader

Your mom recently got some chickens. There’s always a flame going in the wood-burning stove. She’s started eating seasonally and keeps mentioning compost toilets. It’s time to take this next level. Give her Woman-Powered Farm by Audrey Levatino. She’ll probably be out of the house more during her farm internship and classes (chapter 1), but by chapter 8 (“Farm Animals”) you should have lots of baby goats to play with in her absence. And remember, there’s no better way to bond than by wrangling cattle.

For the Mother-in-Law

You sometimes have to (or feel the need to) go the extra mile for your mother-in-law. Your own mom will openly tell you that she hates your gift, but your mom-in-law might seethe silently for a while, increasing your already higher-than-usual levels of anxiety when you’re around her.

Because of the slightly more distant relationship here, we think it’s best to side-step the possibility of giving her something she doesn’t want (and avoiding the re-gift on your next birthday) by just making her something nice for dinner. Get inspired by Bridgette A. Lacy’s new book Sunday Dinner. It’s Lacy’s ode to the weekly sit-down meals that were such an important part of family life for previous generations.

Filled with nostalgic recipes like fragrant Sunday chicken with olives and apricots, Nilla wafer brown pound cake, and classic New York challah, there’s something in here that’s going to bring back some memories and make her mouth (and yours) water.