Lifestyle

In my library: Patricia Heaton

June Cleaver had pearls, but Debra Barone had something better: a quick wit, to go with all that steady love. Patricia Heaton won two Emmys playing Debra in the hit series “Everybody Loves Raymond,” and she’s since moved on to play other mothers — on TV’s “The Middle” and the new film “Moms’ Night Out.” Seems playing a mom comes naturally to Heaton: She has four children of her own, boys ages 15 to 20. And yet, she says, “They don’t watch anything I do. I’m not kidding — I have to force them! I think if I’ve done one thing right, it’s that they’re not interested in my life. They’re their own people. One of them wants to be an actor, and even he didn’t go to the
premiere!”
Here, on Mother’s Day, are Heaton’s favorite mom-related reads.

Operating Instructions

by Anne Lamott
After I read Anne’s “Traveling Mercies,” on faith I wanted to read everything she’d written. She’s struggled with addiction and with being a single mom, and this book made me feel better about my own mothering. She gives people hope — people who don’t have a Gwyneth Paltrow or Martha Stewart lifestyle.

The Runaway Bunny

by Margaret Wise Brown

It’s one of those classic books that, even when I think about it, I get teary — my makeup artist is coming at me with tissues right now! It’s just that my mom died when I was 12, and this idea that your mom will always be there for you — there’s a yearning in me, and that’s part of my faith. God is always there, and mothers are representations of God on Earth.

Little House on the Prairie

by Laura Ingalls Wilder
I read these books as a kid. I’ll never forget when Laura’s mother, Caroline, baked a birthday cake and it burned in the middle, so she picked a bunch of flowers from their garden and put it over the burnt part. She wasn’t overly huggy, but she was steady and stable and there.

The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute To His White Mother

by James McBride

James and I both worked at People magazine when I was in my 20s: He was a writer and I used to run the Xerox machine! So I picked up this book, and I couldn’t put it down. It’s about his mother, who married a black man and raised James in a black community. She was incredible, and this is beautifully written.