Better Reading’s 25 Picks for Mum

Better Reading’s 25 Picks for Mum

This Mother’s Day don’t give Mum another candle or scarf (although yes, those are lovely gifts) – give her a book she’ll love. Better Reading has taken the guesswork away and chosen a variety of possibilities for all kinds of readers!

Sweep mum away with engrossing fiction by Australian authors, like Kate Morton’s The Lake House, Kelly Doust’s debut novel Precious Things, Harmony Verna’s Daughter of Australia or Fiona McCallum’s Standing Strong.

If she has read and loved Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty, never fear as Liane has a great backlist to choose from! What Alice Forgot is one of our favourites. Or if Mum devoured My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante, why not get her the next one in the Neapolitan quartet: #2 is The Story of a New Name.

 If she enjoys historical reads, there are plenty to choose from. Ariel Lawhon’s Flight of Dreams was inspired by the Hindenburg crash, Pamela Hart’s The War Bride focuses on a woman starting a new life in Sydney after WWI, and Anthony Doerr’s Pulitzer Prize winner All The Light We Cannot See is set in WWII.

Or just let Mum escape into a good romance: Rachael Johns’s Outback Sisters and Kayte Nunn’s debut Rose’s Vintage are our picks, both set in Australia!

Keep her on her toes with a female-led psychological thriller. If she’s already read Gone Girl or Girl on the Train, maybe try Missing, Presumed, All These Perfect Strangers, All That is Lost Between Us or The Trap. Each one had us up late, turning the pages furiously!

For a cookbook addict, let River Cottage and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall help her solve the eternal leftovers problem in Love Your Leftovers, full of next-day recipes. If Mum is a lover of any and all literature, give her The Books That Changed My Life. Edited by Bethanne Patrick, it brings together reflections by 100 authors, musicians, actors and more about the incredible power of reading.

If she’s after some non-fiction, we have plenty of options. There’s a new memoir from Jhumpa Lahiri about her passion for language in In Other Words, Yolanda Bogert about her relationship with son Kai and Australia’s treatment of transsexuality in How I Met My Son, or the story of how a little magpie saved a family in Penguin Bloom. Mum can read about the first ever female jockey to win the Melbourne Cup in Michelle Payne’s new autobiography, Life as I Know It. Alexandra Joel writes about the scandalous true story of her glamorous great-grandmother in Rosetta and Sohila Zanjani describes the struggles three generations of her family have faced in Scattered Pearls, and the resilience that got them through.

Things My Mother Taught Me by Claire Halliday collects stories from sons and daughters across the world, and Leigh Van Der Horst writes about her incredible grief at the loss of her mother to cancer in Without My Mum. Both books are testaments to the powerful relationships we share with our mothers.

Let us know what you’ll be getting for Mum this Mother’s Day in the comments below!

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  1. Margaret Willis says:

    Or any book by Jaye Ford.