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Milk cover art

Milk

By: Joanna Wolfarth
Narrated by: Hollie Hales, Joanna Wolfarth
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Summary

- 'Illuminating . . . an important book' Sunday Times
- 'A fascinating journey through the social, cultural and historical meanings of breastfeeding. A sublime book' Elinor Cleghorn, author of Unwell Women
- 'Erudite, intimate and compelling . . . a long-overdue history' Leah Hazard, author of Hard Pushed
- 'A story for us all' BBC History Magazine

Milk is elemental. It is the first thing we look for at birth and, for most, it is the first substance to touch our tongues after we enter the world. It is the promise of nourishment, of care, of life.

Using the arc of her own experience, cultural historian Joanna Wolfarth takes us on an intimate journey of discovery beyond mother and baby, asking how the world views caregivers, their bodies, their labour and their communal bonds. By bringing together art, social histories, philosophy, folk wisdom and contemporary interviews with women from across the world, Milk reveals how infant feeding has been represented and repressed, celebrated and censured. In doing so, it charts previously unexplored territory - and offers comfort and solace to anyone who has fed or will feed a child.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2023 Joanna Wolfarth (P)2023 Weidenfeld & Nicolson
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: History

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highly recommended

best thing I've read as a new mum, very powerful. trying to get my husband to read it now

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Brilliant

Wolfarth takes us on an expansive journey through time and art and across cultures as she explores the under told history of breastfeeding and bottle feeding along side her own experience of breastfeeding and bottle feeding her son. It is both a highly informative and at times highly emotive book that I found totally fascinating from start to finish. I want to buy the physical book now so I can refer back to it! This audio book version is easy listening with great narration. Highly recommend.

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Insight and beautifully written

Mixing memoir from the febrile, fragile days of early motherhood and struggling to breastfeed with cultural commentary and study of infant feeding as depicted in art, this is a brilliantly written and fascinating book. It elegantly sidesteps boring and reductive ‘debates’ about baby feeding and instead examines what we don’t know about this most fundamental of acts and where our attitudes towards it come from. Just fascinating.

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