Read my full review over at 5 Minutes for Mom, where you can also enter to win a copy.

Lauren is a wife, mother of two, and an avid reader. She blogs at Baseballs and Bows.

Perhaps you are shaking your head at the mere mention of Christmas here the week before Thanksgiving! But that’s the point. This book not only gives you guidance about setting goals for the holiday you want (sticking to a budget, saying no to so many activities, focusing more on the religious meaning etc), but Christie also encourages you to use the true spirit of Thanksgiving to usher in the Christmas season. What’s more, the book also takes you all the way into the New Year.

The book contains it all. The “Less is More” chapter not only deals with busyness, but spending and overeating. Does that not sum it up?

Each chapter closes with “simple tips from friends,” which are just as the title suggests — simple, real-life, workable tips that you can consider using this very holiday season.

This book is published by Abingdon Press, a Christian publisher, and there is a very meaningful chapter “Growing Stronger Spiritually,” but other than that, many of these ideas could be used by those who get overwhelmed with the non-religious cultural elements of Christmas.

Go ahead — buy it now. It’s available in paperback and ebook. It’s a short book, so you can squeeze it in during this busy time. And if you end up winning, you can pass your copy along to a friend who needs it, and you can help each other stay accountable to your goals for a less hurried, more focused Christmas (There are even a few discussion questions for each chapter at the back of the book).

Mary gives her perspective on how she helps reduce holiday stress in her post and book review over at 5 Minutes for Faith.

Leave a comment if you’d like to win a copy. We’ll announce the winner right here on November 30.

You can also get another chance to win by checking out Elizabeth’s post over at 5 Minutes for Mom and leaving a comment over there. Having recently returned from living in Morocco, her Christmas experiences are something to check out! The giveaway is closed.

The winner of the latest Mother Daughter Bookclub novel Home for the Holidays is #24 Rebekah.

Don’t miss a thing: Check out our current giveaways. Subscribe to our feed or video reviews on YouTube. Follow us @5M4B on Twitter or on Facebook.

*This post is part of a sponsored campaign with the publisher, but of course my opinions are my own.

Jennifer doesn’t get too hurried or worried during Christmas, but she appreciated the extra encouragement not to get too overwhelmed. When she gets busy, blogging at Snapshot is one of the first things to go.

Honestly, I couldn’t stop laughing while reading this, and my book has hardly any corners left unfolded, since I wanted to remember so many of the hilarious points McCarthy makes. I couldn’t help but snort with laughter when reading this while riding on public transportation, and I noticed more than a few folks trying to sneak a peek at the interesting cover image!

If you want to know what all the laughter is about, click over to read my full review at 5 Minutes for Mom. You can enter to win one of two copies we have for giveaway, too! (U.S. and Canada residents.) The giveaway is closed.

Dawn loves her husband and children more than she can express, even if they all seem to drive her crazy. The fun of their lives is often chronicled on her blog, my thoughts exactly.

Frankel’s style is down-to-earth and she doesn’t mince words. I love her attempts at self-improvement, such as when a marriage counselor suggests that instead of yelling at her husband, she ask him questions, Jeopardy-style. “What is ‘You can be such a prick sometimes?’” she says. Before she knows it, she and her husband are laughing together, which is something they are both good at. When she tries to be calm and zen-like while dealing with an unexpectedly long layover, it doesn’t work—until she sees the humor of her situation and begins looking for other women on the verge of losing it, a game of “Where’s Wacko?” she plays with her kids. Another time, she tries to go an entire week without complaining at all. It’s a failure—she alienates friends, who were hoping for a nice long juicy chat, and she annoys her family. And she realizes that when the truly terrible things of life happen, like the year of her first husband’s illness and death, she didn’t complain at all, and instead focused on the good in life. But there’s something freeing about being melodramatic about small problems which mocks and minimizes them.

As Frankel works through her various “hated” things—other people’s bratty kids, her jealousy when other people effortlessly sail up the New York Times’ bestseller list, annoying habits of her husband—she discovers that expressing negative emotions can have a positive effect. She finds freedom in not trying to be perfect, in admitting when she is hurt by another’s actions. In learning not to avoid negative emotions, she finds a depth and richness to life. Although it’s a funny memoir about Frankel’s life and specifically some horrible people she’s known, it sneaks some life lessons in, some tidbits of valuable wisdom.

Best of all are the study questions. I have long wondered who, if anyone, answers those annoying essay questions supposedly for book clubs at the end of many books, obviously written by frustrated English graduate students who thinks we all want to natter on for hours about metaphor and symbolism, as if we didn’t get enough of that in college. But Frankel’s “subversive” reading questions are perfect. Sample for your enjoyment: “Have you ever felt out of emotional control? Do you wear a “poker face?” Does it look like Lady Gaga?”

It’s Hard Not to Hate You isn’t for everyone, but if you like wry humor you’ll enjoy this look at a healthy way to deal with all that life hands you.

We have a copy to give away to one of you (U.S. and Canadian shipping addresses eligible). Just leave a comment here if you’d like to win. We’ll announce the winner on October 19. This giveaway is now closed.

• The winner of our Scholastic/Kellogg’s giveaway is #24 Melissa N.
• The winner of Heiress is #17 Cyndi Wilson.
• The winner of The Adventures of Everyday Geniuses is #8 Staci A.

Don’t miss a thing: Check out our current giveaways. Subscribe to our feed or video reviews on YouTube. Follow us @5M4B on Twitter or on Facebook.

Elizabeth feels she should admit that she has already pretty much embraced her Inner Hater, especially when it comes to other drivers. And red lights. She is working to achieve patience at her blog Planet Nomad.

Erica Jong edits and contributes to a collection of short pieces, both nonfiction and fictionalized, in the recent release Sugar in My Bowl: Real Women Talk About Real Sex. Each story is distinctive, and the levels of explicitness are broadly ranged, making for interesting reads in various comfort zones.

For my complete review, please click over to the Kirkus Reviews Blog. Let’s get real, just like the authors who contributed to this book- sex is a part of life, and these intriguing pieces run the gamut from funny to serious, wry to appreciative, making for a wildly interesting book you’ll want to talk about.

Raciness doesn’t play a big part on Dawn’s blog, my thoughts exactly, but she did begin to privately wonder what she would contribute to a book such as this!

Not only does Sue Ellen’s Girl Ain’t Fat, She Just Weighs Heavy include humorous stories, but Shellie also shares laugh-out-loud tips and recipes with each chapter (what true southerner could discuss any topic without including food in some way?). Hilarious explanations of southern phrases and quotes from a variety of women are also woven into the text. This light-hearted book is simply fun, and it is a perfect read to share with friends (I can just picture a group of southern ladies laughing over this while getting their hair done).

To celebrate the release of Sue Ellen’s Girl Ain’t Fat, She Just Weighs Heavy, Shellie Rushing Tomlinson is hosting a southern-style shindig on Facebook, and you are invited. Be sure to stop by on June 2nd at 8PM EST. Shellie will be dishing on Bubba Whispering, debunking the Big Boned Theory, and talking about how to manage going Straight Running Crazy. She’ll be giving away copies of the book and gift certificates as well.

Lauren is a wife, mother-of-two, and an avid reader. She thanks Litfuse Publishing for providing the review copy of this book. Lauren blogs at Baseballs and Bows.

We admired the French people’s ability to balance work and family life, their emphasis on quality over quantity in everything from portion size in restaurants to the number of outfits hanging in one’s closet, their focus on deep friendships and evenings filled with wonderful food, wine and conversation.

Jamie Cat Callan had a similar observation and reached a similar conclusion, except that she wrote a book about it, explaining to American women how they could make their everyday lives just a little more French in the good ways. Read my review of Bonjour, Happiness at the Kirkus Reviews blog, and please let us know what you think by commenting over there!

Elizabeth loved living in France and hopes to return some day, although her children feel her accent is atrocious. Read more of her expat adventures at her blog Planet Nomad.

I suspect my experience wasn’t uncommon. As we celebrate Mother’s Day today, what are some books that have shaped how you think of motherhood, or how you approach it yourself? It could be a memoir, a novel, or an actual parenting book. Following are some books we thought of:

ELIZABETH

I read Unless: A Novel (P.S.) a couple of years ago, coincidentally just after a close friend of mine had dealt with a daughter who had gone off the deep end, freaked out. I had walked through this with her, saw first-hand the pain it caused her. Unless: A Novel tells the story of a happy well-adjusted family, dealing with the fact that one daughter has gone off the deep end, freaked out, and now chooses to spend her days sitting on a street corner downtown holding a sign that says “Goodness.” What happened? The mother tries and tries to figure it out, and comes up with some fairly wild explanations. She tries to connect with her daughter but is rebuffed, and she spends a fair amount of time remembering her children’s young childhood. Overall, a great book, and really well-written, and not nearly as depressing as I’ve made it sound.

The Joy Luck Club is a wonderful story of interactions between mothers and daughters, the mothers all first-generation immigrants from China, the daughters all second-generation, straddling two worlds. This element only complicates further the mother-daughter relationships. Probably everyone’s read this one, but it deserves a mention.

Rainbow Garden is probably a middle-grade reader, and it’s a book I read and reread as a child. I love the adults in it and I want to be them when I grow up. Well, not all the adults, but the Owen family in North Wales, where Elaine gets sent to stay when her own mother gets a new job that entails a lot of traveling. From reading the reviews on amazon, apparently they’ve come out with a new, dumbed-down edition that no-one’s really happy with except the publishers. Find a used edition and read it with your kids, grandkids, nieces and nephews, or random elementary-aged children in your neighbourhood.

JENNIFER

Being a mother has made me think in a much different way about my relationship with my own mother. I see her good habits coming through as I parent my kids (being fun and also very supportive), but I also see the bad habits (like become too easily frustrated and yelling, and taking that fun to an extreme that the children might interpret as being made fun of). Perri Klass and her mother Sheila Klass wrote a memoir together that addresses their similarities and differences, partly due to personality and partly due to generational change. Every Mother Is a Daughter: The Neverending Quest for Success, Inner Peace, and a Really Clean Kitchen is funny, irreverent, honest — in short, it’s just truly wonderful. Perri Klass writes about mothering her own kids but also her relationship with her mother in general, which has changed since her father’s death. Sheila writes about being an independent aging mother, and even looks back in her past to share memories of her own mother in yet another generation. I listened to this as an audiobook from audible.com, and it was lovely, with each woman’s voice being represented by her own narrator. I liked it so much that I purchased the “real book” as well. I noticed that it’s now available on Kindle as well. If you are a mother, or a daughter, this candid memoir will touch you in so many ways.

Another book that defined me as a motherhood in those early months, as the birth of my children literally transformed me from “regular woman” to “woman in charge of keeping another being alive” is Gary Ezzo’s On Becoming Baby Wise: Giving Your Infant the Gift of Nighttime Sleep. Oh my is it controversial, but establishing regular feeding, which led to regular predictable and independently realized sleep patterns — both day and night — made me a happy healthy mom, and definitely worked for my kids. I am not an extreme person, so I took what worked for me, but I love the results.

LAUREN

When my children were toddlers, I realized very quickly that they weren’t going to follow along happily with whatever I wanted them to do. I became conscious of their behavior, and I wanted to train them to behave appropriately. Tedd Tripp’s Shepherding a Child’s Heart, along with guidance from a godly woman at my church, completely changed my perspective. Yes, I want my children to behave, but much more importantly, I want their behavior to stem from a good heart. Shepherding a Child’s Heart is one of the most Biblically-based parenting books I have ever read. It has earned a permanent place on my shelf, and I recommend it to all Christian mothers.

Another book that shaped my parenting is The Five Love Languages of Children. As I am sure happens in most families, my children are completely different. They express love in different ways and desire love in different ways as well. The Five Love Languages of Children helped me to understand my children’s needs and helped me to show affection in ways that are meaningful to them. I highly recommend this book to all parents (and I recommend the original 5 Love Languages as well).

The 5 Minutes for Books team enjoys sharing book reviews, recommendations, and the role that books have played in our lives. What books inspired, influenced or affected you as a mother?