The Best Most Awful Job: Twenty Writers Talk Honestly About Motherhood (Elliott & Thompson, £12.99; Tablet price £11.69), edited by Katherine May, is a bid to talk about “the true, dirty business of motherhood”. Rather than tales of “smug” motherhood, we cover adoption, losing a child, step-parenting, life as an autistic mother and, perhaps most relevant to our times, homeschooling.

There’s less light and shade in What Have I Done? An Honest Memoir About Surviving Postnatal Mental Illness by children’s writer Laura Dockrill (Square Peg, £14.99; Tablet price £13.49). With 50 to 70 per cent of women suffering postnatal blues and 15 per cent of these developing more severe, long-lasting depression, Dockrill’s honest account warns, “You might think to yourself, ‘Why did I ruin my life?’”