Jennifer Senior - All Joy No Fun

In All Joy and No Fun ($26.99), award-winning journalist Jennifer Senior
isolates and analyzes the many ways in which children reshape their
parents' lives, whether it's their marriages, their jobs, their habits,
their hobbies, their friendships, or their internal senses of self. She
argues that changes in the last half century have radically altered the
roles of today's mothers and fathers, making their mandates at once more
complex and far less clear. Recruiting from a wide variety of
sources-in history, sociology, economics, psychology, philosophy, and
anthropology-she dissects both the timeless strains of parenting and the
ones that are brand new, and then brings her research to life in the
homes of ordinary parents around the country. The result is an
unforgettable series of family portraits, starting with parents of young
children and progressing to parents of teens. Through lively and
accessible storytelling, Senior follows these mothers and fathers as
they wrestle with some of parenthood's deepest vexations-and luxuriate
in some of its finest rewards. 

Jennifer Senior is a contributing editor at New York Magazine, where she writes profiles and cover stories about politics and social science. She has been a frequent guest on NPR and numerous television programs, including Charlie Rose, The Chris Matthews Show, Hardball, Morning Joe, Washington Journal with Brian Lamb, CNN/American Morning, and NBC/Today. She is a regular contributor to the New York Times Book Review. She lives in New York with her husband and young son.