Poser: A Mother's Life in Twenty-Three Yoga Poses - Softcover

'Thank goodness for Claire Dederer, who has written the book we all need: the long-awaited funny, smart, clear-headed, thoughtful, truthful, and inspiring yoga memoir. To simplify my praise: I absolutely loved this book' (Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love)

'A witty, irreverent, baggy account of her life ... This is a terrifically entertaining book. Whether you are a yoga addict, feminist or child of the Sixties, you'll love it' (Daily Telegraph)

'An engaging, snappy writer...her book is a pleasure' (Guardian)

'Whip-smart ... How yoga became an obsession, gave her insight she didn't know she lacked, and even began to threaten her happy marriage, she relates with wry humour and honesty' (Daily Mail)

Ten years ago, Claire Dederer put her back out while breastfeeding her baby daughter. Told to try yoga by everyone from the woman behind the counter at the co-op to the homeless guy on the corner, she signed up for her first class. She fell madly in love.

Over the next decade, she tackled Triangle, Wheel and the dreaded Crow, becoming fast friends with some poses and developing long-standing feuds with others. At the same time she found herself confronting the forces that shaped her generation.

Daughters of women who ran away to find themselves and made a few messes along the way, Dederer and her peers grew up determined to be good, good, good - even if this meant feeling hemmed in by the smugness of their organic-buying, attachment-parenting, anxiously conscientious little world.

Yoga seemed to fit right into this virtuous programme, but to her surprise Dederer found that the deeper she went into the poses the more they test her most basic ideas of what makes a good mother, daughter, friend, wife - and the more they made her want something a little less tidy, a little more improvisational. Less goodness, more joy.

Witty and heartfelt, sharp and irreverent, Poser is unlike any other book about yoga you will read - because it is actually a book about life...