Suggested Reading List: Postpartum Paintings
These are some books that informed my recent artwork for Postpartum Paintings and continue to inspire me. I have included them in reverse order of when I read them, as far as I can remember. I spent a lot of time researching books related to pregnancy, birth, postpartum, and motherhood, so I thought this might be helpful to anyone else curious about these topics.
*Warning: I’ve included a asterisk for books that contain intense, scary, or sad birth or postpartum experiences. If you are extra sensitive or pregnant, you may want to skip these ones.
Suggested Reading List
Mothers & Other Monsters by Maureen McHugh*
Kid Gloves: Nine Months of Careful Chaos by Lucy Knisley*
Babel by R.F. Kuang
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
Pineapple Street by Jenny Jackson
Witches by Brenda Lozano, translated by Heather Cleary
Linea Nigra: An Essay on Pregnancy and Earthquakes by Jazmina Barrera, translated by Christina MacSweeney
The Kingdom of Ordinary Time: Poems by Marie Howe
No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood*
Bringing Up Bebe by Pamela Druckerman
Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder*
Violeta by Isabel Allende, translated by Frances Riddle*
The Candy House by Jennifer Egan
How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell
The Motherly Guide to Becoming Mama by Jill Koziol, Li Tenety, and Diana Spalding
Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez
Designing Your Perfect Nursery: A Step-by-Step Approach to Creating the Nursery of Your Dreams by Naomi Coe
Expecting Better: Why the Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom is Wrong - and What You Really Need to Know by Emily Oster
This Long Thread: Women of Color on Craft, Community, and Connection by Jen Hewett
What it Means when a Man Falls from the Sky by Lesley Nneka Arimah
Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy
Amulet by Roberto Bolaño, translated by Chris Andrews
Faces in the Crowd by Valeria Luiselli, translated by Christina MacSweeney
Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang*
Revolutionary Motoring: Love on the Front Lines by Alexis Pauline Gumbs, China Martens and Mai’a Williams
Books I have been meaning to finish or start — I don’t yet know which may need warnings so beware.
Mother Brain: How Neuroscience is Rewriting the Story of Parenthood by Chelsea Conaboy
The Fourth Trimester by Kimberly Ann Johnson
Designing Motherhood: Things that Make and Break Our Births by Michelle Millar Fisher and Amber Winick
Things that Helped by Jessica Friedmann
Mother is a Verb: A Conventional History by Sarah Knott
Like a Mother: A Feminist Journey Through the Science and Culture of Pregnancy by
Angela Garbes
Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change by Angela Garbes