My Wild and Sleepless Nights: THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

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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. I almost stopped reading it early on for that reason, but am glad I persevered, and have just bought her first book (the second sounds too emotional for me! 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. 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. I started reading slower as I got towards the end, as I just didn’t want to leave the company of this family.

Windows users should also consider upgrading to Internet Explorer 11, Microsoft Edge, or switching to Firefox or Chrome.Some of it I don't really recognise in my own like, but other bits feel like she's got inside my head and can read my darkest thoughts.

We use Google Analytics to see what pages are most visited, and where in the world visitors are visiting from.Stroud briskly shrugs people off when they question the practicality of having a fifth baby (“I want messy”), and cheerfully admits that in many ways another child is the last thing they all need. I felt guilty for the same things Stroud felt guilty for, including her relationship with her teenage son despite the fact that I do not have one! You feel the roller coaster ride of family life, from the rawness of birth through to the mundane of family life. So much spoke to my heart, it made me laugh out loud nod and agree out loud and possibly cry a little, quietly and with a mixture of joy and sadness.

MORE PRAISE FOR CLOVER STROUD:’Clover’s expertise is writing about family life in a way that feels both new and entirely familiar’ – Pandora Sykes’As tender, blazing, funny and unflinching as the love it describes. The only reason why I did not finish this in one sitting was due to the fact that I was being the very mother that seeps from the pages of this book. 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! Unflinching, brutally honest, just as Rachel Cusk's A Life's Work was and no book has been since, but with a wholly different tone and story to tell - this is a book for all mothers, from those just exploring the idea to those who have just given birth but also those whose children are beginning to leave: it is a lyrical, funny, painful, sexy, moving and consoling look at the tension that exists between wanting to be a good mother, while holding on to the person with all the desires and longings you had before. 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.As someone going through the empty nest phase I was drawn back to the wonderfulness of wee ones as Clover reminded me of the beauty of being the whole world to tiny people and then to becoming a satellite to teenagers, all the while maintaining your own identity and sense of self along the way. I feel like the author awakened emotions in me I never knew that I had, or hadn’t felt for many many years. Just as being fucked so hard it hurts can feel good, this pain becomes something I recognise as clearly as I know myself. A bit of a timely read for me and it has renewed my sense of worth as not only a mother, but as a woman.