Crib Notes: Succinct Book Reviews for New & Busy Mothers

Welcome to the very first Crib Notes, a monthly newsletter featuring succinct book reviews for new and busy mothers.

Before the birth of my son, books were the love of my life. Since becoming a mother, reading has become more essential than ever to my sense of self. It helps me feel tethered to the woman I was before I had a baby. With it, motherhood has brought an onslaught of visceral new emotions, and these have coloured my reading habits. In the early days, I sometimes felt so vividly alive that I sought writing to match this mental incandescence. At other times, exhausted from rocking a baby who cried endlessly, I craved comfort. Sometimes I wanted books which dug deep into motherhood and held it up to the light; sometimes I wanted escape. I was also newly impatient when it came to choosing my reading matter: those slivers of time I had to myself were so precious, I could not waste them on books I wasn’t enjoying. Crib Notes is inspired by a year of reading on borrowed time: dur…