The agony of early breastfeeding, too, is offset by the “pure liquid heaven” hormones that course through her, which she compares to the effect of heroin. My Wild and Sleepless Nights examines what it means to be a mother, and reveals with unflinching honesty the many conflicting emotions that this entails: the joy and the wonder, the loneliness and despair. I’ve not enjoyed a book about motherhood more, it was beautiful and brilliant and I would recommend to all mothers.

Eleanor Mills in the Sunday Times Mother to five children, Clover Stroud has navigated family life across two decades, both losing and finding herself. In her touching, provocative and profoundly insightful book, she captures a sense of what motherhood really feels like - how intense, sensuous, joyful, boring, profound and dark it can be.

When someone gives her new baby a stuffed toy monkey, she longs to surround him with more ancient and serious things: the Bible, The Complete Works of Shakespeare. The title to be read and discussed is sign-posted and on sale for the whole of the previous month (with a discount for those who make it known they intend to come) and everybody is welcome, whether first-timer, part-timer or regular-timer. Just as being fucked so hard it hurts can feel good, this pain becomes something I recognise as clearly as I know myself. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would definitely recommend it to anyone else who loves reading about motherhood or who is already mother and wants to read about someone else's journey! This is really a very different book from the usual ‘motherhood is hard, but worth it’ theme, but Wild and Sleepless is a genre in its own right.

Mother to five children, Clover Stroud has navigated family life across two decades, both losing and finding herself. The teachers have an authority and control over their class, but at the weekends, they want to relax and eat Chinese takeaway in their leisurewear.This is quite simply the best book about motherhood I have ever read : touching, tender, honest and true. However, as I started in on reading the book I was almost immediately taken in by Stroud's ability to describe everything so viscerally. Clover Stroud’s powerhouse of a memoir gets closer than anything else I have read to answering that question. Yes, it would be very beneficial for any married couple with children, but not all of us have the means to make it happen. Sometimes I think that a lot of parenthood is like that morning, trying to create an impression that you know what you are doing and are in control.

Her own mother was brain damaged in a horrific riding accident when Stroud was 16: “Much of my life has been about seeking strong motion both to make me feel alive and distract from the pain of existence. It’s not about duty, or even about juggling the demands of kids and work; mothering for Stroud has more to do with hedonism and adventure, about escape, and exploring the outer limits of human experience. We are experiencing delays with deliveries to many countries, but in most cases local services have now resumed. As the mother of 2 teens I was transported back to the wonderful time when both were tiny, whilst also being accompanied through the imperfect attempts at parenting my teens. We hear about Stroud's own complex relationship with motherhood, the challenges facing her other children, her relationship with her partner, her sex life, how she is trying to balance work and family plus so many more things.Some beautiful writing and captures moments in motherhood so well, but overall I don’t relate to the author and I find some of it a bit needlessly melodramatic.