Mother's Day book picks by Delia Owens, Jennifer Weiner, Kiley Reid and more

As a mother of four, I count down to Mother's Day. It's the one time a year the kids bring me breakfast in bed. Forget any presents that they (or my husband) might get me or flowers that may arrive. It's the luxury of staying in bed past 6 a.m., cozying up to my tribe of loved ones, and knowing that for a few minutes, I'm being seen and appreciated. Ten minutes later, all bets are off.

On ordinary days, I treat myself by reading in that same bed. I crack open books and am transported into other kitchens and bedrooms all over the world. I immerse myself in stories about mother-child relationships, like those captured in books like Elissa Altman's "Motherland: A Memoir of Love, Loathing, and Longing," Claire Bidwell Smith's "The Rules of Inheritance" and Liz Astrof's "Don't Wait Up: Confessions of a Stay-at-Work Mom."

But what about authors themselves? What are some of their favorite books about mother-child relationships? For Mother's Day, here are picks by some notable authors:

Delia Owens, author of "Where the Crawdads Sing"

My favorite mother-and-daughter book, in fact one of my favorite books of any description, is the classic collection "Mama Makes Up Her Mind" by Bailey White. Told with down-home humor in one of the most memorable voices of our time, we read about the author's mother storing the old Porsche on the screen porch next to the claw-foot tub and growing old with the family alligator. But through all the talk of needing "something like a husband" in their lives, it's clear that their love for each other ran as rich as the muscadine wine. A rare and true love story.

Kiley Reid, author of "Such a Fun Age"

"Eating The Cheshire Cat" by Helen Ellis is a dark, Southern novel featuring three young women in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, their mothers and the people their mothers want them to be. There are crushes that lead into obsession and lies that ruin reputations. It's a novel that's outrageous and messy and fun.

Jennifer Weiner, author, most recently, of "Mrs. Everything" and "Big Summer"

My favorite book about a mother and daughter is "Anne of Green Gables" by L.M. Montgomery (really, the entire series, but this book in particular). Anne is an orphan, and Marilla is the prickly, taciturn spinster who adopts a child to have some help around the house and farm. She wanted a boy, and is far from thrilled when she gets, instead, a scrawny, brainy, overly imaginative girl. So many mother-daughter stories are about how a mother's love shapes and forms a child, but the Anne books are as much about how a child teaches a woman to become a mother as they are about a woman helping a girl find her way in the world.

Taffy Brodesser-Akner, author of "Fleishman is in Trouble"

I can't decide if my favorite mother-son book is "Portnoy's Complaint" by Philip Roth or "The Goldfinch" by Donna Tartt. "Portnoy" is obviously the one that most realistically represents the kingdom of hurt I'm in for in a few years; but it's "The Goldfinch" I'd prefer to think about, the way it so accurately conveys the place a beloved mother occupies in a person's world - how she's a universe, a galaxy even. But I'll bring a third book in here, too, because there's a line from Megan Abbott's terrific 2018 book, "Give Me Your Hand," that represents the sentiments I'm feeling right now - worry about my own mother, in Brooklyn, at the epicenter of this terrible COVID-19 epidemic, and who I will probably not spend Mother's Day with this year - and that's: "When your mom is gone, the thing no one ever tells you is that the little compass needle inside keeps spinning around and around, never finding north."

Min Jin Lee, author of "Free Food for Millionaires" and "Pachinko"

The exquisitely drawn main character in Marilynne Robinson's "Gilead" is the pastor, John Ames. That said, what has stayed with me is his love for his second wife, Lila, and their son, which motivates him to remember everything and write it all down. Is motherhood merely a life of actions and feelings between a woman and her child? What function does motherhood serve to those who witness it? I found John's appreciation of Lila's love for him and their child profoundly affecting. So, I suppose it is natural, that I recommend both "Gilead" and its related book, "Lila."

John Kenney, author, most recently, of "Love Poems for Married People"

There are many heartwarming mother-son relationships that come to mind. Oedipus and Jocasta. MacBeth and Lady Gertrude. Wait. Start again. A novel that certainly stands out for me is John Kennedy Toole's "A Confederacy of Dunces." The relationship between Ignatius and his mother, Irene, is so tortured, so painful, yet so insanely funny. They've lived together for too long, can't stand each other, yet, I think, need each other in a way. Until they don't. Until she has to commit him to an asylum (as moms are wont to do ... maybe just my mom?). I'm not sure it has a happy ending, but it is likely you'll find tears streaming down your cheeks. And the novel is all the more poignant because of the story of its publication; after the author's suicide, at 31, his mother, Thelma, made it her mission to get the book published.

Gretchen Rubin, whose books include "The Happiness Project" and "Outer Order, Inner Calm"

I love Ruth Ozeki's brilliant novel "A Tale for the Time Being." In Japan, Nao is a teenage girl with many serious worries, and her surprising, loving relationship with her great-grandmother Jiko, a Buddhist nun, is a beautiful example of how love can spring up unexpectedly.

Fanny Singer, author of "Always Home: A Daughter's Recipes & Stories"

I remember first reading Amy Tan's "The Joy Luck Club" in high school. The book has stayed with me ever since - the subject was at once incredibly relatable and yet still very transporting. Tan creates atmospheric biographies for her mothers, but the way she describes the nuances of the contemporary mother-daughter relationship I found resonant: deep and fraught and still full of love. My relationship with my mother was very different from those of her daughter characters, but I was going through a typically turbulent transition when I read that book. It remains a favorite - especially because Tan also writes about food so evocatively.

Dani Shapiro, author, most recently, of "Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love"

A favorite novel about the mother-daughter relationship is "The Furies" by Janet Hobhouse. Hobhouse was in her early 40s when she wrote it, and, unbeknown to her, she was already sick with the ovarian cancer that would ultimately kill her (she died at 43). It somehow gives the book an extraordinary intensity. It's semi-autobiographical and about a matriarchal line of women loosely based on Hobhouse's own mother and grandmother. It's a gorgeous, unforgettable novel.

Susan Choi, whose most recent book, "Trust Exercise," won the National Book Award for fiction

One of my favorite mother-daughter reads ever is last year's "Feast Your Eyes" by Myla Goldberg, which tells the story of Lillian and Samantha Preston. Lillian is the small-town girl who moves to New York City in the mid-1950s, discovers photography, gets pregnant out of wedlock, and refuses to give any of it up; she raises her daughter alone while dedicating herself to mastering an art form dominated by men. When she finally gets recognition, it's the wrong kind: an exhibit of nude photos of her young daughter turns her into tabloid fodder as she's pilloried nationwide. Samantha is the daughter, and also our storyteller, as she reconstructs her mother's life in the form of providing catalog copy for a show that finally recognizes her mother's genius. This was such a phenomenal story, so compellingly told, and it was also an amazing exploration of a completely different art form, constantly making me forget I was reading verbal descriptions of images because I could see them.

Elizabeth Wetmore, author of "Valentine"

I decided to go old-school and look to a book that I return to again and again, not only for the beautiful writing, but also for its moral urgency, the hue and cry, and the way it changed my life when I read it as a young white woman who came from a background where I had never even heard of Toni Morrison and my understanding of America's racist history was based on nothing more than what I learned in Texas public schools (so, incomplete, at best). My pick is: "Beloved."

Rebecca Serle, author of "In Five Years"

"Where'd You Go, Bernadette" by Maria Semple is one of the funniest, most loving stories about the bond between a mother and daughter there is. As someone who has a magical mother, I relate to Bee's awe and devotion deeply.

Mitch Albom, author, most recently, of "Finding Chika" and "Human Touch"

"The Color of Water" by James McBride. The best kind of family love story - a true one - written by a black son to his white mother, but really written for anyone unashamed to return the love their mother bestowed on them.

Lori Gottlieb, author of "Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed"

My pick is "Olive, Again" by Elizabeth Strout. As the mother of a son, I felt every possible emotion as the aging Olive tried to mend her relationship with her adult son, after a lifetime of bristling tension that sometimes masked her fierce maternal love. There are so many books about complicated mother-daughter relationships, but this mother-son relationship is full of nuance on the nature of regret and redemption, and a gorgeous meditation on a bond that seems broken but is ultimately unbreakable.

Chris Bohjalian, whose books include "Midwives" and "The Red Lotus"

I'm going to pick two that immediately come to mind, and I love them because they convey a mother's spectacular courage and determination to protect their (very) little boy at all costs: Emma Donoghue's "Room" and Gin Phillips's "Fierce Kingdom." Both are tense, gripping page-turners with deeply and precisely drawn mothers and sons.

Laura Prepon, author of "You and I As Mothers: A Raw and Honest Guide to Motherhood"

I love the book "The Runaway Bunny" by Margaret Wise Brown. It was one of the first books I read to my daughter and beautifully depicts that no matter where a child goes, a mother's love knows no limit.