Today's show features conversations with multiple authors, all of whom have contributed to a new anthology entitled Labor Day: True Birth Stories by Today's Best Women Writers. Guests include the anthology's editors, Eleanor Henderson and Anna Solomon, as well as Amy Brill, Arielle Greenberg, Cristina Henriquez, Heidi Julavits, Jane Roper, Rachel Jamison Webster, Sarah Jefferis, and Sarah Strickley. Booklist says "This isn’t a how-to book, nor does it present a case for the ‘perfect birth,’ which sets it apart from the plethora of childbirth manuals and lends it broader appeal and a very different type of resonance." And Emma Straub says "Pregnancy made my body ravenous for food and my brain ravenous for stories like this, stories of how other women had crossed the great divide. In delivery rooms, in the backseats of cars, and at home, these women tell their birth stories so clearly that they must have had stenographers present on the scene. I loved reading this book with my baby asleep in the next room, and will give it to every pregnant woman I know from here on out, forever." Monologue topics: Labor Day, hard work, parenthood. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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“What did the council decide on item 42?” — answered with the speaker and the moment.