10 great gift book ideas for Mother's Day, from 'Flowers' to 'Paris'
There is nothing my mother likes better than a book. If your mom is a book lover, too, then you’re in luck this Mother’s Day.
We’ve rounded up 10 new titles sure to please moms on Sunday. Just add wrapping paper and a pretty bow.
1. Flowers are de rigueur on Mother’s Day. But instead of an arrangement that will wilt after a few days, consider Martha’s Flowers (Clarkson Potter), a gorgeous big bouquet of a book from Martha Stewart (with Kevin Sharkey). Subtitled A Practical Guide to Growing, Gathering, and Enjoying, Martha's Flowers has chapters on blooms including roses, dahlias, daffodils, hydrangeas, tulips and more.
2. Sunday might be a day to serve Mom breakfast in bed, but two new cookbooks will hit the spot later. Joanna Gaines of HGTV fame has a No.1 USA TODAY best seller with her first cookbook, Magnolia Table (William Morrow), featuring recipes from home and the new restaurant she’s opened with husband Chip Gaines in Waco, Texas.
3. In At Home With Natalie (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), Today show West Coast anchor Natalie Morales shares family favorites such as Lemon-Ricotta Pancakes, which, come to think of it, sound pretty great for that Mother’s Day breakfast.
4. Rick Bragg celebrates his mother and her down-home Southern cooking in The Best Cook in the World: Tales From My Momma’s Table (Knopf), a memoir with recipes and wild family stories served as a heaping side dish.
5. Go Ask Ali: Half-Baked Advice (and Free Lemonade) by humorist Ali Wentworth (Harper) offers lighthearted essays on parenting, friendship and why she loves her husband (Good Morning America’s George Stephanopoulos).
6. In The Seasons of My Mother: A Memoir of Love, Family and Flowers (Atria), actress Marcia Gay Harden writes poignantly and affectionately of her relationship with her mother, who now suffers from Alzheimer’s disease.
7. Eunice Kennedy Shriver had causes of her own she championed as founder of the Special Olympics. The sister of Jack, Bobby and Teddy (and mom to Maria Shriver) gets her due in a new biography, Eunice: The Kennedy Who Changed the World, by Eileen McNamara (Simon & Schuster).
8. Ruth Bader Ginsburg is having an ongoing moment. The U.S. Supreme Court justice with her own rap moniker (Notorious RBG) stars in a new documentary, RBG, and in a fun little gift book, You Can’t Spell Truth Without Ruth by Mary Zaia (Castle Point Books). It collects 150 quotes from the 85-year-old energizer, like this gem: “John Paul Stevens didn’t step down until he was 90.”
9. Does your mother love to travel, even via armchair? Paris in Stride: An Insider’s Walking Guide (Rizzoli) is a handy-size illustrated guidebook by two expats, Jessie Kanelos Weiner and Sarah Moroz, who provide insights into the “real Paris” they know and love. Weiner’s charming watercolors of the city (and its food and wine) are the next best thing to hopping on a plane.
10. We can’t forget fiction fans. My pick for a great spring read is The Female Persuasion by Meg Wolitzer (Riverhead), a juicy novel about feminist icon Faith Frank, now in her 60s, who mentors bedazzled college student Greer Kadetsky. Surprises await both generations of women in this smart page-turner. Daughters will want to borrow it from Mom when she’s done. Discussion to follow.
