6 Top writing books like The Mother Artist: Portraits of Ambition, Limitation, and Creativity by Catherine Ricketts

Cover of The Mother Artist: Portraits of Ambition, Limitation, and Creativity by Catherine Ricketts

The Mother Artist: Portraits of Ambition, Limitation, and Creativity

By: Catherine Ricketts

4.65

Format: 210 pages, Hardcover

Are caregiving and creative labor fundamentally at odds? Is it possible for mothers to attend to bo…

If you liked the writing plot in The Mother Artist: Portraits of Ambition, Limitation, and Creativity by Catherine Ricketts , here is a list of 6 books like this:

Cover of The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill

1. The Girl Who Drank the Moon

By: Kelly Barnhill

4.12

Format: 388 pages, Hardcover

Every year, the people of the Protectorate leave a baby as an offering to the witch who lives in th… read more

Similar categories in Kelly Barnhill's The Girl Who Drank the Moon book and Catherine Ricketts's The Mother Artist: Portraits of Ambition, Limitation, and Creativity

"Sorrow is dangerous."

-Kelly Barnhill, The Girl Who Drank the Moon

"Magic and madness are link after all."

-Kelly Barnhill, The Girl Who Drank the Moon

"Death is always sudden, even when it isn't"

-Kelly Barnhill, The Girl Who Drank the Moon

"It was wrong not to be curious, it was wrong not to wonder."

-Kelly Barnhill, The Girl Who Drank the Moon

Cover of The Secret of Red Gate Farm (Nancy Drew, #6) by Carolyn Keene, Amanda Cross, Mildred Benson, Russell H. Tandy

2. The Secret of Red Gate Farm (Nancy Drew, #6)

By: Carolyn Keene , Amanda Cross , Mildred Benson , Russell H. Tandy

3.42

Format: 320 pages, Hardcover

When Bess Marvin purchased an expensive bottle of Oriental perfume, she never expected to stumble i… read more

Similar categories in Carolyn Keene's The Secret of Red Gate Farm (Nancy Drew, #6) book and Catherine Ricketts's The Mother Artist: Portraits of Ambition, Limitation, and Creativity

Cover of Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott

3. Bird by Bird

By: Anne Lamott

4.24

Format: 238 pages, Paperback

A newer edition of this title can be found here. "Thirty years ago my older brother, who was ten… read more

Similar categories in Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird book and Catherine Ricketts's The Mother Artist: Portraits of Ambition, Limitation, and Creativity

  • nonfiction
  • memoir
  • writing
"Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird."

-Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

"A writer paradoxically seeks the truth and tells lies every step of the way."

-Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

"You don't always have to chop with the sword of truth. You can point with it too."

-Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

"If your wife locks you out of the house, you don't have a problem with your door."

-Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

4. Hello, Universe

By: Erin Entrada Kelly

3.49

Format: 465 pages, Hardcover

In one day, four lives weave together in unexpected ways. Virgil Salinas is shy and kindhearted and… read more

Similar categories in Erin Entrada Kelly's Hello, Universe book and Catherine Ricketts's The Mother Artist: Portraits of Ambition, Limitation, and Creativity

5. The Secret of the Old Clock (Nancy Drew, #1)

By: Carolyn Keene , Sara Paretsky , Russell H. Tandy

4.04

Format: 431 pages, Hardcover

This is a facsimile reprint of the first ever Nancy Drew book, published 1930. Nancy Drew's keen mi… read more

Similar categories in Carolyn Keene's The Secret of the Old Clock (Nancy Drew, #1) book and Catherine Ricketts's The Mother Artist: Portraits of Ambition, Limitation, and Creativity

6. Nancy's Mysterious Letter (Nancy Drew, #8)

By: Carolyn Keene , None

4.04

Format: 431 pages, Hardcover

Nancy receives a letter informing her that she is heir to a fortune. This story tells of her search… read more

Similar categories in Carolyn Keene's Nancy's Mysterious Letter (Nancy Drew, #8) book and Catherine Ricketts's The Mother Artist: Portraits of Ambition, Limitation, and Creativity

7. The Secret of Shadow Ranch (Nancy Drew, #5)

By: Carolyn Keene , Mildred Benson

3.70

Format: None pages, Paperback

Nancy drew arrives in Phoenix, Arizona, eagerly looking forward to a fun-filled vacation at Shadow … read more

Similar categories in Carolyn Keene's The Secret of Shadow Ranch (Nancy Drew, #5) book and Catherine Ricketts's The Mother Artist: Portraits of Ambition, Limitation, and Creativity

8. Fates and Furies

By: Lauren Groff

4.15

Format: None pages, Hardcover

Every story has two sides. Every relationship has two perspectives. And sometimes, it turns out, th… read more

Similar categories in Lauren Groff's Fates and Furies book and Catherine Ricketts's The Mother Artist: Portraits of Ambition, Limitation, and Creativity

Cover of A Life of One's Own: Nine Women Writers Begin Again by Joanna Biggs

9. A Life of One's Own: Nine Women Writers Begin Again

By: Joanna Biggs

4.01

Format: 272 pages, Hardcover

Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2023 by the New York Times , The Week , Vulture , Elle, and The Mi… read more

Similar categories in Joanna Biggs's A Life of One's Own: Nine Women Writers Begin Again book and Catherine Ricketts's The Mother Artist: Portraits of Ambition, Limitation, and Creativity

  • nonfiction
  • memoir
  • writing
"The wound my unsuspecting heart formerly received is not healed,"

-Joanna Biggs, A Life of One's Own: Nine Women Writers Begin Again

Cover of Splinters by Leslie Jamison

10. Splinters

By: Leslie Jamison

3.86

Format: 272 pages, Hardcover

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Recovering and The Empathy Exams comes the riveti… read more

Similar categories in Leslie Jamison's Splinters book and Catherine Ricketts's The Mother Artist: Portraits of Ambition, Limitation, and Creativity

  • nonfiction
  • parenting
  • memoir
Cover of All Fours by Miranda July

11. All Fours

By: Miranda July

3.81

Format: 336 pages, Hardcover

The New York Times–bestselling author of The First Bad Man returns with an irreverently sexy, tende… read more

Similar categories in Miranda July's All Fours book and Catherine Ricketts's The Mother Artist: Portraits of Ambition, Limitation, and Creativity

"But maybe the road split between: a life spent longing vs. a life that was continually surprising"

-Miranda July, All Fours

"Maybe we shouldn't do that," Jordi said. "Flatten ourselves like that. Erratic doesn't have to mean crazy or irresponsible. Shouldn't we be normalizing change?"

-Miranda July, All Fours

"I guess any calling, no mater what it is, is a kind of unresolved ache," I said, giving in to knowing more than him. "It's a problem that you can't fix, but there is some relief in knowing you will c…"

-Miranda July, All Fours

"For me lying created just the right amount of problems and what you saw was just one of my four or five faces- each real, each with different needs. The only dangerous lie was one that asked me to co…"

-Miranda July, All Fours

Cover of Matrescence: On the Metamorphosis of Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Motherhood by Lucy   Jones

12. Matrescence: On the Metamorphosis of Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Motherhood

By: Lucy Jones

4.54

Format: 310 pages, Hardcover

A radical new examination of the transition into motherhood and how it affects the mind, brain and … read more

Similar categories in Lucy Jones's Matrescence: On the Metamorphosis of Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Motherhood book and Catherine Ricketts's The Mother Artist: Portraits of Ambition, Limitation, and Creativity

  • nonfiction
  • parenting
  • memoir
Cover of Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy

13. Soldier Sailor

By: Claire Kilroy

4.10

Format: 256 pages, ebook

Well, Sailor. Here we are once more, you and me in one another's arms. The Earth rotates beneath us… read more

Similar categories in Claire Kilroy's Soldier Sailor book and Catherine Ricketts's The Mother Artist: Portraits of Ambition, Limitation, and Creativity

  • parenting
"I laughed and then we were doing that thing again, our thing: laughing into one another's eyes. All that time I had thought I was jollying you along when all that time you were jollying along me."

-Claire Kilroy, Soldier Sailor

"I tell my husband about my childhood and he tells me about his but it isn't the same. We can never know each other as we were then. But I know you. I will see the child you were in the man you will b…"

-Claire Kilroy, Soldier Sailor

"Hated cling film. Hated it more than I hated kinetic sand. Defeated by something that lacked a third dimension. While I'd been off tinkering on the cerebral plane, the smart money has been mastering …"

-Claire Kilroy, Soldier Sailor

"I knelt down to pick up the hatchling to . . . . what? Give it back to its mother? Here is your dying chick? Just before I made contact with it, she dive-bombed me. The mother actually dive-bombed me…"

-Claire Kilroy, Soldier Sailor

Cover of A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life by George Saunders

14. A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life

By: George Saunders

4.54

Format: 403 pages, Kindle Edition

For the last twenty years, George Saunders has been teaching a class on the Russian short story to … read more

Similar categories in George Saunders's A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life book and Catherine Ricketts's The Mother Artist: Portraits of Ambition, Limitation, and Creativity

  • nonfiction
  • writing
"Then do that again, over and over, until I'm pleased."

-George Saunders, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life

"What transforms an anecdote into a story is escalation. Or, we might say: when escalation is suddenly felt to be occurring, it is a sign that our anecdote is transforming into a story."

-George Saunders, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life

"There’s a vast underground network for goodness at work in this world—a web of people who’ve put reading at the center of their lives because they know from experience that reading makes them more ex…"

-George Saunders, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life

"We tend, in discussion, to reduce stories to plot (what happens). We feel, correctly, that something of their meaning resides there. But stories also mean through their internal dynamics—the manner i…"

-George Saunders, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life

Cover of How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell

15. How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy

By: Jenny Odell

3.68

Format: 232 pages, Hardcover

When the technologies we use every day collapse our experiences into 24/7 availability, platforms f… read more

Similar categories in Jenny Odell's How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy book and Catherine Ricketts's The Mother Artist: Portraits of Ambition, Limitation, and Creativity

  • nonfiction
Cover of When You Trap a Tiger by Tae Keller

16. When You Trap a Tiger

By: Tae Keller

4.15

Format: 297 pages, Hardcover

Newbery Medal Winner (2021) Some stories refuse to stay bottled up... When Lily and her famil… read more

Similar categories in Tae Keller's When You Trap a Tiger book and Catherine Ricketts's The Mother Artist: Portraits of Ambition, Limitation, and Creativity

"I am a girl who sees invisible things, but I am not invisible."

-Tae Keller, When You Trap a Tiger

"Does it get easier? Does the sadness go away? The sadness fades, yeah. Eventually. But the missing ... I don't know if that ever does."

-Tae Keller, When You Trap a Tiger

"If you put things off for later, you'll never do them. They'll become harder and scarier, and one day you'll realize you've run out of time."

-Tae Keller, When You Trap a Tiger

"It's hard to breathe. I know now: The moment when everything really falls apart--it's not during the big explosion. It's in the quiet after. And the feeling is not a shattering. Not quite"

-Tae Keller, When You Trap a Tiger

Cover of Try Softer: A Fresh Approach to Move Us out of Anxiety, Stress, and Survival Mode--and into a Life of Connection and Joy by Aundi Kolber

17. Try Softer: A Fresh Approach to Move Us out of Anxiety, Stress, and Survival Mode--and into a Life of Connection and Joy

By: Aundi Kolber

4.40

Format: 256 pages, Kindle Edition

"In the wise and soulful tradition of teachers like Shauna Niequist and Brene Brown, therapist Aund… read more

Similar categories in Aundi Kolber's Try Softer: A Fresh Approach to Move Us out of Anxiety, Stress, and Survival Mode--and into a Life of Connection and Joy book and Catherine Ricketts's The Mother Artist: Portraits of Ambition, Limitation, and Creativity

  • nonfiction
Cover of Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age by Katherine May

18. Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age

By: Katherine May

3.62

Format: 212 pages, Hardcover

From the New York Times-bestselling author of Wintering, an invitation to rediscover the feelings o… read more

Similar categories in Katherine May's Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age book and Catherine Ricketts's The Mother Artist: Portraits of Ambition, Limitation, and Creativity

  • nonfiction
  • memoir
"Sometimes we are visited by destruction. Other times, it seems, the world flexes its claws and lets us feel its hot breath, just to remind us how small we are, how helpless."

-Katherine May, Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age

"I have started to look up the meaning of place names recently. It is perhaps an interest that awakens in you ass you age, this enthusiasm for peering back through time to find lost meaning."

-Katherine May, Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age

"Sacred places are no longer given to us, and they are rarely shared between whole communities. They are now containers for our own knowing, our own meanings. They don't translate across minds. It fal…"

-Katherine May, Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age

"You do not need to walk in the wilderness to make contact with the wild. If you know your stories--if you understand the mythologies of your land--then you can leap from a sunlit stroll with your dog…"

-Katherine May, Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age

Cover of Owner of a Lonely Heart: A Memoir by Beth Nguyen

19. Owner of a Lonely Heart: A Memoir

By: Beth Nguyen

3.63

Format: 256 pages, Hardcover

From the award-winning author of Stealing Buddha’s Dinner, a powerful memoir of a mother-daughter r… read more

Similar categories in Beth Nguyen's Owner of a Lonely Heart: A Memoir book and Catherine Ricketts's The Mother Artist: Portraits of Ambition, Limitation, and Creativity

  • nonfiction
  • memoir
Cover of How to Be an Artist by Jerry Saltz

20. How to Be an Artist

By: Jerry Saltz

3.94

Format: 144 pages, Hardcover

"Inspiration leaps off the pages from Jerry Saltz's new book on creativity. . . . This book is for … read more

Similar categories in Jerry Saltz's How to Be an Artist book and Catherine Ricketts's The Mother Artist: Portraits of Ambition, Limitation, and Creativity

  • nonfiction
  • writing
"Bad art teaches you as much as good art, maybe more."

-Jerry Saltz, How to Be an Artist

"Surely, your crappy art can fake out twelve stupid people. I've seen it done with one or two."

-Jerry Saltz, How to Be an Artist

"For now, make something, learn something, and move on. Or you’ll be buried waist-deep in the big muddy of perfectionism."

-Jerry Saltz, How to Be an Artist

"But doubt is a sign of faith: it tests and humbles you, allows newness into your life. Best of all, doubt banishes the stifling effect of certainty. Certainty kills curiosity and change."

-Jerry Saltz, How to Be an Artist

Cover of A Ghost in the Throat by Doireann Ní Ghríofa

21. A Ghost in the Throat

By: Doireann Ní Ghríofa

4.04

Format: 326 pages, Paperback

A true original. In this stunningly unusual prose debut, Doireann Ni Ghriofa sculpts essay and auto… read more

Similar categories in Doireann Ní Ghríofa's A Ghost in the Throat book and Catherine Ricketts's The Mother Artist: Portraits of Ambition, Limitation, and Creativity

  • nonfiction
  • memoir
"Swift, the twist from ordinary to catastrophe."

-Doireann Ní Ghríofa, A Ghost in the Throat

"Instead, I'll think of new words, and then I'll follow them."

-Doireann Ní Ghríofa, A Ghost in the Throat

"We cannot know from whose mouths the echoes of our lives will chime."

-Doireann Ní Ghríofa, A Ghost in the Throat

"We cannot permit reason to intrude upon this moment. Do not deny us this."

-Doireann Ní Ghríofa, A Ghost in the Throat

Cover of The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA by Liza Mundy

22. The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA

By: Liza Mundy

4.23

Format: 400 pages, Kindle Edition

A thrilling and monumental new history of the CIA that reveals how women have always played crucial… read more

Similar categories in Liza Mundy's The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA book and Catherine Ricketts's The Mother Artist: Portraits of Ambition, Limitation, and Creativity

  • nonfiction
Cover of The Garden by Clare Beams

23. The Garden

By: Clare Beams

3.33

Format: 304 pages, Hardcover

The discovery of a secret garden with unknown powers fuels this page-turning and psychologically th… read more

Similar categories in Clare Beams's The Garden book and Catherine Ricketts's The Mother Artist: Portraits of Ambition, Limitation, and Creativity

Cover of Here After by Amy  Lin

24. Here After

By: Amy Lin

4.25

Format: 272 pages, Hardcover

Here After is an intimate story of deep love followed by dizzying loss; a stunning, taut memoir fro… read more

Similar categories in Amy Lin's Here After book and Catherine Ricketts's The Mother Artist: Portraits of Ambition, Limitation, and Creativity

  • nonfiction
  • memoir
Cover of The Glassmaker by Tracy Chevalier

25. The Glassmaker

By: Tracy Chevalier

4.00

Format: 416 pages, Hardcover

From the bestselling historical novelist, a rich, transporting story that follows a family of glass… read more

Similar categories in Tracy Chevalier's The Glassmaker book and Catherine Ricketts's The Mother Artist: Portraits of Ambition, Limitation, and Creativity

"...you never recover from losing someone; you just learn to accommodate the hole it makes in you."

-Tracy Chevalier, The Glassmaker

"People who make things also have an ambiguous relationship with time. Painters, writers, wood-carvers, knitters, weavers and, yes, glassmakers: creators often enter an absorbed state that psychologis…"

-Tracy Chevalier, The Glassmaker

Cover of Masquerade by O.O. Sangoyomi

26. Masquerade

By: O.O. Sangoyomi

4.04

Format: 352 pages, Hardcover

Set in a wonderfully reimagined 15th century West Africa, Masquerade is a dazzling, lyrical tale ex… read more

Similar categories in O.O. Sangoyomi's Masquerade book and Catherine Ricketts's The Mother Artist: Portraits of Ambition, Limitation, and Creativity

Cover of Liars by Sarah Manguso

27. Liars

By: Sarah Manguso

3.89

Format: 272 pages, Hardcover

A searing novel about being a wife, a mother, and an artist, and how marriage makes liars out of us… read more

Similar categories in Sarah Manguso's Liars book and Catherine Ricketts's The Mother Artist: Portraits of Ambition, Limitation, and Creativity

"I was in charge of everything and in control of nothing."

-Sarah Manguso, Liars

"I needed my suffering to be acknowledged. After that, maybe I’d think about getting through it."

-Sarah Manguso, Liars

Cover of Reproduction by Louisa Hall

28. Reproduction

By: Louisa Hall

3.82

Format: 224 pages, Hardcover

A lucid, genre-defying novel that explores the surreality of pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood … read more

Similar categories in Louisa Hall's Reproduction book and Catherine Ricketts's The Mother Artist: Portraits of Ambition, Limitation, and Creativity

  • parenting
Cover of The Nurture Revolution: Grow Your Baby’s Brain and Transform Their Mental Health through the Art of Nurtured Parenting by Greer Kirshenbaum

29. The Nurture Revolution: Grow Your Baby’s Brain and Transform Their Mental Health through the Art of Nurtured Parenting

By: Greer Kirshenbaum

4.45

Format: 336 pages, Hardcover

The latest research in neuroscience and parenting come together in this groundbreaking book, which … read more

Similar categories in Greer Kirshenbaum's The Nurture Revolution: Grow Your Baby’s Brain and Transform Their Mental Health through the Art of Nurtured Parenting book and Catherine Ricketts's The Mother Artist: Portraits of Ambition, Limitation, and Creativity

  • nonfiction
  • parenting
Cover of The Wonder Paradox: Embracing the Weirdness of Existence and the Poetry of Our Lives by Jennifer Michael Hecht

30. The Wonder Paradox: Embracing the Weirdness of Existence and the Poetry of Our Lives

By: Jennifer Michael Hecht

4.01

Format: 368 pages, Hardcover

The Wonder Paradox offers a lively, practical, and transcendent roadmap to meaning and connection t… read more

Similar categories in Jennifer Michael Hecht's The Wonder Paradox: Embracing the Weirdness of Existence and the Poetry of Our Lives book and Catherine Ricketts's The Mother Artist: Portraits of Ambition, Limitation, and Creativity

  • nonfiction
  • writing
Cover of The Mother Artist: Portraits of Ambition, Limitation, and Creativity by Catherine Ricketts

31. The Mother Artist: Portraits of Ambition, Limitation, and Creativity

By: Catherine Ricketts

4.65

Format: 210 pages, Hardcover

Are caregiving and creative labor fundamentally at odds? Is it possible for mothers to attend to bo… read more

Similar categories in Catherine Ricketts's The Mother Artist: Portraits of Ambition, Limitation, and Creativity book and Catherine Ricketts's The Mother Artist: Portraits of Ambition, Limitation, and Creativity

  • nonfiction
  • parenting
  • memoir
  • writing

16 Top nonfiction books like The Mother Artist: Portraits of Ambition, Limitation, and Creativity by Catherine Ricketts

Transform Your Habits

Bird by Bird

Anne Lamott

4.24

Transform Your Habits

A Life of One's Own: Nine Women Writers Begin Again

Joanna Biggs

4.01

Transform Your Habits

Splinters

Leslie Jamison

3.86

Transform Your Habits

Matrescence: On the Metamorphosis of Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Motherhood

Lucy Jones

4.54

View all the books

19 Best fiction books like Liars by Sarah Manguso

Transform Your Habits

All Fours

Miranda July

3.81

Transform Your Habits

Tell Me Everything (Amgash, #5)

Elizabeth Strout

4.46

Transform Your Habits

Bear

Julia Phillips

3.38

Transform Your Habits

Same As It Ever Was

Claire Lombardo

4.00

View all the books

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