Mother's Day Picks
It’s Mother’s Day and our booksellers are back, back, back again with some more expertly-curated recommendations. If you’re planning on buying a gift for the mother figure in your life, then we’ve got you covered. From Booker Prize-winning authors, to a stellar anthology of crime stories for all Christie-heads, to books that will simply make you want to pick up the phone to your own mother.
Mothercare
Lynne Tillman
'Beautifully written in Tillman’s flowing style and signature rhythm, this is a memoir like no other. Less the schmaltzy heartwarming pick you usually see for Mother’s Day, but more an honest account of the difficulties and awkwardness of caring for one’s parent as they once did for you. Both touching and funny, Tillman leans into the love and frustration of mother daughter relationships as you get older, and the inevitable grief that hangs over it all. Raw, honest and wonderfully written.'
- Flaminia, Foyles, Charing Cross Road
Tom Lake
Ann Patchett
'Spring and lockdown bring Lara’s three grown daughters back to the family cherry orchard. While picking cherries, they tease out the story of the film star their mother once dated, many years before. Tom Lake is a beautifully written reflection on love, loss and the lives that parents share with and keep secret from their children.'
- David, Foyles Charing Cross Road
All the Ways I Love You
Helen Docherty (author), Daniela Sosa (illustrator)
'A gorgeous celebration of the special bond between parent and child, this rhyming picture book takes the reader on a fantastical journey through nature, and would be perfect for any mums with small babies or young children.'
- Sarah, Foyles Charing Cross Road
A Woman's Story
Annie Ernaux (author), Tanya Leslie (translator)
'In this short and beautifully written book, Ernaux attempts to chronicle the complicated and ever-changing relationship between a mother and a daughter. Is it possible for a daughter to view her mother as anything but just that: her mother? Ernaux chronicles the life of the woman who raised her, who grew and fed her, as a woman with a life and dreams outside of her daughter. This book is poignant and Ernaux's language is, as always, flawless. And who knows, it may make you think of your own mother differently.'
- Sally, Foyles Charing Cross Road
A Woman of Substance
Barbara Taylor Bradford
'This was one of my mother's favorite novels. A wonderfully encompassing, rags to riches saga, by the author who invented the genre. And as an added bonus, if you like the book, the classic 80's TV miniseries it inspired is available to stream. That's the weekend sorted!'
- Cleaver, Foyles Charing Cross Road
Mothersong
Amy Acre
'A beautiful and stark look at motherhood in all its complexities. Acre's debut poetry collection ranges from violence and desire to tenderness and wonder, concerned with motherhood and the new mother's place in the world. With a dazzling range of form this collection is inventive and surprising, drawing inspiration from film, religion, memory, politics and language. A collection to return to again and again!'
- Hannah, Foyles Charing Cross Road
Mothers and Sons
Colm Tóibín
'Tóibín’s mother/son relationships are messy and complicated but are detailed with such compassion and beauty in these stories that your heart glows. ‘A Long Winter’ made me sob.'
- Jim, Foyles Charing Cross Road
Shuggie Bain
Douglas Stuart
'This is a beautiful and moving love story between mother and son. Set in 1980s Glasgow, Agnes is a woman who struggles through addiction and poverty, but she has an enduring and resilient sense of character, and the love between her and Shuggie is a visceral thing. Things may not always be easy for the pair, and that’s putting it lightly, but despite their misery Stuart conjures this unforgettable relationship from a place of vulnerability and love.'
- Ross, Foyles Charing Cross Road
White is for Witching
Helen Oyeyemi
'This book is about a lot of things but at its core it is a family home’s malevolent obsession with the maternal line of the Silver women who reside there. Oyeyemi ambitiously explores the reach and effect of generational legacies at this secluded bed and breakfast on a Dover cliffside.'
- Saima, Foyles Charing Cross Road
My Name Is Lucy Barton
Elizabeth Strout
'A mother visits her daughter in hospital, they sit and chat about nothing and everything. Beautiful, messy and immersive. My Name is Lucy Barton is a love letter to complicated mother/daughter relationships but a story that will ultimately make you want to pick up the phone to your mum.'
- Caitlin, Foyles Charing Cross Road
Fire Exit
Morgan Talty
'A heartfelt book considering the choice between bearing hidden truths and undoing life's balance by sharing them. It follows a father who, whilst reckoning with the estranged relationship with his own daughter, re-enters his mother's life to care for her as she undergoes ECT treatment for her lifelong struggle with depression and emerging dementia. Morgan Talty writes beautifully about the awkward and quietly painful parts of strained familial ties, and when honesty and love isn't enough to repair broken relationships, but is also sometimes all we have.'
- Abby, Foyles Charing Cross Road
Sight
Jessie Greengrass
'Scientific discoveries and breakthroughs in medicine; psychoanalysis and the warping of memory; familial grief and maternal ambivalence… This small, remarkable book is about many things, but it coheres with searing effect around the inheritance of mothers, daughters, and the long lines of women that precede – and may succeed – each of them. Sight is fixated on the fragility and unknowability of our minds and bodies, and the bittersweet truth that, from the second we are born, so begins our lifetime of steady, incremental separation from the mothers who carried us into the world.'
- Mike, Foyles Charing Cross Road
The End We Start From
Megan Hunter
'Set against the backdrop of an apocalyptic scale flood in London, The End We Start From follows a mother and her newborn child as everyone is forced to become refugees and struggles for survival and safety. Sparsely written, every word in this book is selected with purpose. It is a story of motherhood, transformation and, ultimately, hope.'
- Tazmyn, Foyles Charing Cross Road
Deadlier
Sophie Hannah (editor)
'Like many sweet little old ladies, my Mother-in-Law loves reading about gruesome murder. What better way then to give her what she really wants this Mother's Day than this great anthology edited by Sophie Hannah, including writers from Agatha Christie and Daphne du Maurier, to Val McDermid and Margaret Atwood.'
- Dan, foyles.co.uk
The Stand
Stephen King
'Heralded as ‘The Master Storyteller’, Stephen King’s The Stand is his magnum opus but more importantly, my mother’s favourite novel. At once, it serves as a post-apocalyptic novel and a philosophical, poignant battle between good and evil.'
- Luke, Foyles Charing Cross Road
The Rain Before it Falls
Jonathan Coe
'At the age of 73, Rosamond leaves behind her past dictated on cassettes in which she describes twenty photos, including episodes of her life with her partner and Imogen, a little girl they both looked after. I loved this book for its beautiful and moving portrait of women and mothers.'
- Julie, Foyles Charing Cross Road
My Mother, Madame Edwarda, The Dead Man
Georges Bataille
'Perhaps a strange recommendation for Mother's Day, but certainly a hair-raising set of short stories for the freaky fiction lover in your life; and a wonderful excuse to recommend one of the most underrated writers of the 20th century. All of the stories included, and in particular the story entitled 'My Mother', are perfect examples of Bataille's ability to blend the sacred and profane, sexuality and the spiritual, often with the aim of exploring our embattled relationships with taboos. Maybe pair this gift with a bottle of wine and chocolates, just in case.'
- Connor, Foyles Charing Cross Road
