Momma Zen, by Karen Maezen Miller

Wonderful to read anytime from pregnancy through parenting a young child, this author faces the fear and uncertainty we all feel with compassion and real wisdom.

Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety, by Judith Warner

A more sociological and political view of our current culture of motherhood, this book is consciousness-raising and sure to strike good book club debates.

Waiting for Birdy: A Year of Frantic Tedium, Neurotic Angst, and the Wild Magic of Growing a Family, by Catherine Newman

Funny and honest. Definitely a good read while pregnant with a second child.

Confessions of a Slacker Mom, by Muffy Mead-Ferro

I love how these “confessions” give us permission to do what’s easy, instead of always trying to follow the dominant culture’s more perfectionist ideals of motherhood.