Elisabeth Badinter’s The Conflict: How Modern Motherhood Undermines the Status of Women will delight and annoy all points of the political spectrum. This usually indicates a great book. From page one, Badinter launches a reasoned, but powerful, feminist critique at the worrying results of the cult of all-encompassing motherhood. She describes a society pushing mothers to be mothers. Mothers aren’t mothers and workers, mothers and women, or even mothers and lovers. Mothers are mothers, and those who step out from this identity immediately encounter guilt-laden social judgment. At the heart of this pressure is the re-invention of “traditional” motherhood underscored by naturalism – no epidural, no formula, and definitely no daycare. "No way," says Badinter. Such motherhood excludes fathers, breaks up families, and pressures women to forego careers, social life, and equality, she argues. Badinter isn’t against women choosing 24/7 motherhood, but she is alarmed at the social pressure that presents this as the only acceptable choice. Society may judge childless women selfish, but it’s even harsher on guilt-ridden working moms. Choice emerges as Badinter’s rallying cry, and she sees its absence, particularly in North America, undermining women’s equality. Arguing for choice, freedom, and also responsibility, The Conflict grasps a…

WHAT LIES BEHIND …January 2008. It was about as hopeful a season as there had been in the years since a bitty slum popped up in the biggest city of a country that holds one-third of the planet’s poor. A country dizzy now with development and circulating money. Mumbai's international airport is surrounded by an ever expanding collection of luxury hotels. Driving into the city's centre, you’d pass the Sheratons and Hyatts and a long high wall with an advertisement for Italian ceramic tiles. The ad on that wall reads: “Beautiful Forever, Beautiful Forever, Beautiful Forever.” In an interview with the CBC’s Anna Maria Tremonti, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Behind the Beautiful Forevers, Katherine Boo, described how when driving in a car, you wouldn’t be able to see behind this wall where that “bitty” slum lies : 3,000 people packed into 335 huts, the eastern border of which is a lake “of sewage and petro-chemicals and illegally dumped materials.” This slum, and all that surrounds it, is what Behind the Beautiful Forevers is all but exclusively concerned with.    AN AMERICAN IN INDIA  Married to an Indian, Boo has spent the last ten years splitting her time between India and the States,…

An Indigo Book Review Alain de Botton’s writing reminds me of another best-selling writer, Malcolm Gladwell (What the Dog Saw). Both write non-fiction that is as accessible and entertaining as it is erudite and illuminating. And like Gladwell, de Botton has not only a boundless curiosity, writing mostly non-fiction on topics that span the breadth of the human condition, but also that special journalistic gift of taking mounds of academic, and likely rather dry and incomprehensible research, and turning it into something fun and compelling to read. My sister introduced me to the Swiss-born, English writer 15 years ago, with his first and only novel, On Love, published when de Botton was 23 (!). It is as much a love story as an analysis of the process of falling in and out of love. At over 2 million copies sold in over 30 countries around the world On Love is thus far his bestselling book and a thoroughly engrossing read, especially for those in the midst of the roller coaster highs and lows that typically begin (or end?) a relationship. Since then de Botton has focused exclusively on non-fiction. He has written books about architecture and happiness, about travel, status anxiety…

The Power of Habit is one of the breakout stories of 2012, generating huge buzz among book-lovers. While early media about Charles Duhigg’s book focused on the revelations of Target’s incredible – some would say invasive – customer analytics,  it is a much wider appreciation of how habits drive the decisions of individuals and businesses (check out our review). Duhigg, a reporter for The New York Times, has crafted a classic that will stand along side Malcolm Gladwell and the team of authors behind Freakonomics. He kindly took the time to answer questions for the Indigo Non-Fiction Blog. Indigo Non-Fiction Blog (INFB): “Can’t teach an old dog new tricks”; “Creatures of habit” – habit plays such a big part of our lives that there is an entire idiom around it. So, are we just walking habits? Charles Duhigg (CD): Habits don't guide everything - but they're pretty close. Habits make up forty percent of our daily behaviors, according to studies.  When you woke up this morning, for instance, what did you do first? Did you hop in the shower, check your email, or grab a doughnut from the kitchen counter? What did you say to your kids on the way out…