New York Times Magazine

Editors’ Picks: Mother’s Day Gift Ideas

The Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante (boxed set, Kindle Edition)
This may seem terribly basic, but a year ago I bought my mom the first two novels in the Neapolitan series by Elena Ferrante and I couldn’t be more surprised to learn that Ferrante is Mom-approved. She would text me details from the lives of Lila and Elena as if they were people we knew, and I would occasionally have to stop to make sure they weren’t. Maybe it’s a mother-daughter thing, or maybe it’s because my great-grandparents are from Naples, but the Neapolitan novels ended up being a verified hit with my mom. She didn’t wait for me to get her the final two books in the series, but thanks to a box set that came out last October, you can deliver them to your mama all in one go.
$40 at Amazon

The Neapolitan Novels by Elena Ferrante (on Kindle)
My mom has a master’s in English and reads more than any person I’ve ever met. We are in a book club for two that doesn’t meet formally. I love a book, I tell her to read it. She loves a book, she tells me to read it. We discuss. For months I haven’t been able to shut up about these epic novels about life in postwar Naples and the friendship between two women. I would have given her my hard copies but she’s been practicing the KonMari method since before I was born and would never want a stack of books, so she reads the Kindle editions.
$10 each at Amazon