Crib Notes: Reading in the Rush Hour of Motherhood

What to read when you have 0 time.

If you’ve been a Crib Notes subscriber for a long time, you’ll know that I love finding a big, chunky book that I can return to over and over again. Narratives like this felt particularly anchoring during the early days of motherhood, when I used to breastfeed through the night, or listen to audiobooks whilst lapping the park with the pram. Parenting is seasonal, though – and recently, things have shifted for me. Now, my reading needs to slot neatly into the daily routine of pick-ups, drop-offs, bathtime and bedtime. More and more, I find myself reaching for shorter books and short stories.

There’s something satisfying about stories in particular: the way one can be fitted into 15 minutes spent drinking a coffee, listened to post school-run, or on the commute.

Meanwhile, novellas and shorter books stop me from losing momentum. If I’m reading something longer than 250 pages, I often lose the spark of interest after a busy week with the boys. By comparison, reading a short novel over a few days feels like a dazzling achievment! Last week I didn’t manage to call the dentist; call the vet; book my toddler’s flu jab; sort laundry, or go to the post office, but I did finish Samantha Harvey’s Booker Prize winning novel, Orbital (144 pages).

In this issue of Crib Notes, I’ve written about two collections of short stories, two short novels and one short memoir, all of which are ideal for reading when you are in the rush hour of parenting. I hope you find something here that meets your reading needs!

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5 Books to Read When You Have 0 Time

1. This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things by Naomi Wood 

In nine tart, thorny, delicious stories (nine stories for nine months of pregnancy, incidentally!) Naomi Wood skewers the traps society sets for mothers – and, pleasingly, provocatively shows us some women who trangress them. One woman explodes during an enforced corporate therapy group for new mums; another spends the day simmering with rage and arousal whilst her six-year-old attends her ex-partner’s wedding. ‘Comorbities’ is a radiant and wry look at a couple with young children trying to reboot their sex life. It is some of the best writing I have read about finding the time to be horny when you’re busy catastropjohising about climate change and Whether Our Children Have A Future. ‘Flatten the Curve’ is a moving but sharp story about family life, as a woman spends lockdown resenting her husband and fantasising about her hot neighbour. Some stories flirt with even darker facets of motherhood: a pregnant film-director manipulates her star into delivering a palm d’Or winning performance. In ‘Dino Moms’ a reality-tv series shows teenage girls and their mothers living on a ‘dinoranch’, side-by-side with…, you guessed it, actual dinosaurs. This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things is one of the best books I have read this year – I think you’re going to love it. 

When to Read It: On one level, This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things is simply a toothsome collection of stories: a total pleasure to read between mundane moments of mothering. On another level, this book is an enormously readable fuck you to the patriarchy, allowing readers to indulge in a fantasy of ‘bad’ female behaviour. And finally, whilst Wood shows how the world is ludicrously rigged against mothers, she also captures the utter glory of maternal love. She shows how wildly-romantic and bone-deep it can be. In one story, the narrator muses, ‘I had only recently understood that having a child felt like a long and dependable love affair [...] It is not very interesting to be in love with your child: it’s commonplace, this sacrificial love and yet whenever I thought of Paola I thought about my heart; how all of my feelings for her were in that tender, silken, sewn-up pocket.’ To summarise, this book will make you feel seen and it will give you a very good time. 

Sensitive content: Mentions of post-natal depression and miscarriage. 

How To Read It: I read the extremely stylish hardback, which is out now from Phoenix. At 241 pages it isn’t too unwieldy, but if you’re reading with a baby in cradle-hold or juggling toddler paraphernalia, you might opt for the ebook or the audiobook (I think the latter would be especially enjoyable!). 

What to Read Next: I’ve been reading and very much admiring Lucy Caldwell’s collection of stories, Openings (read my thoughts here). And let me nudge you in the direction of Helen Ellis’s American Housewife (read my review here).