If you already bought her all the Elena Ferrante books, here are some other options for the literary mom in your life. (And if you’re still stumped for what to get, peruse these editors’ picks and our hyper-specific gift guide.)
1. All Things Cease to Appear, by Elizabeth Brundage
For the mother who loved Gone Girl: This feminist-tilted mystery starts with a woman’s grisly murder, possibly at her husband’s hand, followed by the unfurling of their secretly rotten marriage.
$18 at Amazon
2. The Nest, by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney
Even the best mom in the world might get a kick out of reading about those who are less perfect. To wit: the chilly matriarch and four siblings at the heart of this New York saga of gentrification, motherhood, and middle age.
$16 at Amazon
3. A Fairly Good Time, by Mavis Gallant
This New York Review of Books reissue from the cult Canadian author is about a recently remarried young widow who is “fond of quoting Jane Austen and Kingsley Amis and of using her myopia as a defense against social aggression.” If that doesn’t scream “mom” then we don’t know what does.
$14 at Amazon
4. Lee, by Lee Radziwill
If her coffee table is looking a little spare. The glamorous sister of Jackie O. has gathered together personal photographs and anecdotes into this very chic tome published by Assouline.
$50 at Bergdorf Goodman
5. Women Crime Writers: Eight Suspense Novels of the 1940s & 50s: A Library of America Boxed Set, by Sarah Weinman
A stylish boxed set of rediscovered, reissued mid-century women’s mystery novels—“domestic suspense,” as it was once called.
$58 at Amazon
6. Gjelina: Cooking From Venice, California
If your mother, like you, only eats grain bowls these days, she will love this cookbook courtesy of Venice-based veggie-forward restaurant Gjelina (which is getting ready to open a branch in New York City).
$35 at The Line
7. Louisa: The Extraordinary Life of Mrs. Adams, by Louisa Thomas
A nice counterpoint to all those doorstop bios marketed and gifted as “dad books,” with the twist that your mom might actually crack this one.
$18 at Amazon
8. Sweet Lamb of Heaven, by Lydia Millet
A mother who hears voices from her baby and then goes into hiding from her psycho politician husband? It’s not at all what you’d expect (it’s deep and decidedly for the sane).
$18 at Amazon
9. The Vanishing Velazquez: A 19th Century Bookseller’s Obsession With a Lost Masterpiece, by Laura Cumming
For the art-history buffs among us as well as lovers of books, lost causes, eccentrics, true-crime mysteries, great writing, and the old master himself.
$18 at Amazon
10. Philippe Halsman’s Jump Book
After every photo shoot, the 1950s portraitist Philippe Halsman would ask his subjects — Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, Salvador Dalí, Richard Nixon among them — to jump. For a kicky mom.
$45 at The Line
11. Innocents and Others, by Dana Spiotta
For the arty feminist who used to drive an MG, a cool literary story about friendship, film, and deception makes loneliness sound beautiful, and vice versa.
$17 at Amazon
12. Barbra Streisand: Redefining Beauty, Femininity, and Power, by Neal Gabler
For the Jewish mother who has everything.
$17 at Amazon
