With Mother's Day on the horizon, we asked our friend and accomplished writer, Lindsay Lerman to share three book suggestions with us that would make thoughtful gifts.

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1. The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson: This is a beautiful genre-fluid memoir about love, identity, gender, sexuality, and family. Everything is up for investigation in this book. I know many mothers—and womxn in general—who have felt very seen by this book. I particularly loved watching Nelson think through pregnancy, labor, and early motherhood.

2. Living a Feminist Life by Sara Ahmed: I’ve recommended this book a lot lately, because everyone should read it (as bell hooks says on the cover!) Ahmed understands feminism as something that is necessarily intersectional and something that must be practiced and lived. This book is a joy to read—it’s clear and accessible, and in the last sections she offers what she calls a “feminist killjoy survival kit.”

3. Pigs by Johanna Stoberock: While not about parenthood or motherhood per se, this novel asks us to think about what kind of world we’re creating for our children. It’s a harrowing and compelling fable about children who live on an island where the world’s trash is kept.

Lindsay Lerman is a writer and translator. Her first novel, I’m From Nowhere, is out now with CLASH Books. Entropy named it one of the best books of 2019, and Buzzfeed Books called it “a heartbreaker of a debut.” She is an editor at Black Telephone Magazine. Her first academic translation is forthcoming. She has a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada.

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