Instructions Not Included

Oct 3, 2024 5:12 AM

Author:Charlotte Moerman

After a decade of climbing the career ladder collecting business cards, box files and an assortment of baffling acronyms, Charlotte Moerman leaps off into the great unknown of motherhood.

She gamely enters into her new life and soon can't imagine a world before Pampers wipes. But without appraisals or targets to guide her along the way, Charlotte also realises there's an awful lot to learn. Scratching her head over egg-and-soldiers etiquette, the appeal of paper pants, and her instinctive new urge to rock shopping trolleys whether or not there's a passenger on board, Charlotte also surrenders any last hope of achieving household minimalism, what with submarines in the bath, marbles underfoot and a villainous nappy bin that would give Doctor Who a run for his money.

Instructions Not Included follows the joy and the pain of becoming mum to three small boys, from juggling multiple demands and accepting going to the loo as a group activity, to finding 300 ways to describe being knackered. Charlotte's days in paid work soon seem distant. So, frequently, does her Dutch husband. Armed with a sharp wit, an encyclopaedic knowledge of children's literature and a nit comb, Charlotte allows women to celebrate their own uncertainty as she guides them through her experiences of the potential minefield that is motherhood.

Reviews

A supremely fresh and vital performance, matching profound emotion with witty observation... This is a truly marvellous book

—— Independent

Abse's diary is a remarkable and tender document

—— Sunday Times

For all its painful honesty, [this is] a surprisingly joyful and compelling book... Imbued with all the best qualities of what it means to human and in love

—— Independent on Sunday

The Presence is a fragment of autobiography written from the most private part of a poet's heart, with a pen dipped in blood and tears. That it transcends this to become both elegiac and celebratory, to inhabit both the suffered present and the beloved past, places it almost beyond the scope of routine criticism.

—— Daily Telegraph

Hauntingly poignant... One hopes that he comes before long to share the happiness this wise, funny, heart rending little book brings to its readers

—— Daily Telegraph

Full of memorable images... As Abse performs the strange and also strangely valuable work of mourning, he offers, with The Presence, wit and balm

—— Financial Times

Elegy and eulogy, full of kindness and understanding of our common vulnerablility, this lovely book is a very rich boon

—— The Times

Reading this book is like having a chat with your friends or with other mums at the crèche or the school gate.

—— Mothers and Babies

A no-nonsense guide to running a family – whatever your personality.

—— Easy Living

In this memoir she describes her eccentric, dangerous, wonderful bohemian parents...Blackburn emerged from this turmoil as a fine writer, and this book is full of understanding and reconciliation

—— Margaret Drabble , New Statesman

a rich account...brilliant vignettes

—— Camilla Long , Sunday Times

This piercing memoir paints in vivid colours Julia Blackburn's nightmarish childhood

—— Alison Flood , The Telegraph

Blackburn tells us about these things in a compelling authorial voice which is by turns numb and incredibly sensitive

—— William Leith , Evening Standard

Brutally honest book ...deeply moving testament to the love that can somehow survive

—— Aimee Shalan , Guardian

An extraordinary family memoir... A bohemian classic

—— Week

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