"How seductive it can be not only to explain something, but be able to blame someone." - @amandahess.bsky.social, author of SECOND LIFE, talks pregnancy, anxiety and expectations of parenthood: maternalstressproject.substack.com/p/the-danger...

I saved SECOND LIFE by @amandahess.bsky.social for vacation reading, and it is fully extraordinary. It’s not just for people who have kids — it’s for people (all of you reading this now) who live on the internet. Nobody writes about that weird intimacy like she does. bookshop.org/p/books/seco...

I’ve been a fan of @amandahess.bsky.social since the late 2000s and basically forced her to be friends with me and if her columns hadn’t already vindicated that choice her book sure did! I read it on the plane which does make crying easier but I was crying AND laughing the whole time

Second Life by @amandahess.bsky.social I feel like every Gen Z and millennial woman should be required to read it

"At a party held to announce the findings, a knife sliced through a layer of frosting to reveal the fleshy gender inside. A pregnant woman beat a piñata until its gender spilled out. A father-to-be pulled the trigger and rained gender across the range." Amanda Hess' "Second Life" is so good.

this is tonight!

A horrifying statement published today by the Editorial Committee of the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency. "Without immediate intervention, the last reporters in Gaza will die" Translation from French to English by @cnorristrent.bsky.social:

How tech is transforming parenthood with @amandahess.bsky.social on Apple News in Conversation: apple.news/AJqDYupu5SZS...

Attempting to eliminate funding for certain kinds of “woke” studies, the Trump administration erased hundreds of millions of dollars being used for cancer research. www.wired.com/story/how-tr...

dr. frankenstein dies at the end fyi www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...

@amandahess.bsky.social joins @wnyc.org's On The Media to talk about her new book, SECOND LIFE, and the surreal collisions between parenthood and technology. Listen now: www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm...

come talk about true life with us!

It was a huge pleasure to interview @amandahess.bsky.social ‪ for @onthemedia.bsky.social about her book, Second Life. Her book is such a thoughtful and incisive look at how technology has infused so many parts of pregnancy and parenthood today. Take a listen! www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm...

⭐ NEW EP ⭐ Loved talking to the wonderful @amandahess.bsky.social abt her unexpected, eerie bond w/her fertility app during pregnancy 🎧 LISTEN: wp.me/p4bvGZ-3Hg

Hello. After months and months of self-consciously self-promoting, the day has finally come. I WANT TO BURN THIS PLACE DOWN is available wherever books are sold. www.harpercollins.com/products/i-w...

Really enjoyed Second Life: Having a Child in the Digital Age by @amandahess.bsky.social. The final chapter was like a mini-millennial-mom version of Naomi Klein’s Doppelgänger.

Since the early 2010s, social media has been identified with protesters. In the early days, social media was an effective tool for activists to organize and communicate with one another and directly with the public, providing counternarratives to the ones laid out in popular coverage.

NYC’s campaign finance laws make it so you can get this mailer … and it’s gotta say who paid for it.

people need to stop writing good books for a few months! my current rotation, all May pubs: Empire of AI @karenhao.bsky.social No Cop City, No Cop World @micahh.bsky.social @kamaufranklin.bsky.social Second Life @amandahess.bsky.social The AI Con @emilymbender.bsky.social @alexhanna.bsky.social

Tech companies are powerfully influencing our relationships with our kids, starting before they’re even born. I wrote a book about the surveillance, commodification and eugenic thinking embedded in everything from period trackers to baby monitors, and you can buy it now bookshop.org/p/books/seco...

Hell of a photo

Oh hell yes, they got a longtime private equity guy to review my book! He hated it! Do you want to be cool and preorder BAD COMPANY, or do you want to be like GARY??

I... oh my god. amandaguinzburg.substack.com/p/diabolus-e...

“I had been the pregnant woman fetishizing the normal test result. Now that I was the mother of a child with a rare condition, I found an enemy in my past self”. Just finished Second Life by @amandahess.bsky.social. It is brilliant.

great, disturbing ,Aymann Ismail story about the proliferation of "Pallywood," the accusation that most images of the devastation in the West Bank and Gaza are manufactured by crisis actors.

reading even a thought of collectivized childcare is like a sigh of relief! last night i was in a rare space where there was collective childcare for a couple hours. it's hard to adjust to but it's not hard to see how good it is for parents. more more more

Second Life from @amandahess.bsky.social is a incredible, well-reported book on parenting, disability, surveillance, how parents drive each other crazy and are egged on by tech companies looking for a niche

My first pregnancy was a lot. I had an amniocentesis at 7 months. A fetal MRI to map the baby’s brain. A four-week wait for a diagnosis. A c-section and instant transfer to the NICU. For those weeks I wanted to no longer exist in my body. I listened to this podcast instead:

🎧 Listen to the podcast! NYT culture critic @amandahess.bsky.social spoke with @mina-kim.bsky.social about how technology, including fertility apps and high-end gadgets, are reshaping parenthood. 🔗:

FRI at 10AM: NYT culture critic @amandahess.bsky.social‬ joins to talk about how technology, including fertility apps and high-end gadgets, are reshaping parenthood. ❓ Tell us about your journey to parenthood. Did you rely on tech like a pregnancy or parenting app? Did it help or stress you out?

The precision of this distinction is really helpful: "Hess has a singular talent...for capturing the quotidian experience of browsing the internet and being manipulated by its algorithms without ever judging or trivializing the emotional impulses being thus manipulated." Need to get Second Life.

Wrote about special needs parenting and @amandahess.bsky.social's excellent new book Second Life for the @jewishcurrents.bsky.social Shabbat Reading List

this is a letter to the editor from a high school track runner who came in second to a trans girl in a race. her state house rep in maine started talking about it. so she wrote this: www.pressherald.com/2025/05/14/r...

Parenting hasn’t changed but technology has. lyz.substack.com/p/same-old-f...

Just finished @amandahess.bsky.social’s gorgeous memoir, Second Life, and then read Carley Fortune’s newest romance in one insomniac sprint. 😵‍💫

my book is not an advice book but on @slate.com I WILL tell you what to do about your husband who stupidly bought your daughter a rabbit slate.com/advice/2025/...

"The maternal-fetal dyad has become a triad: mama, baby, screen...Donald Winnicott’s “good enough” mother is dead; the internet tells us that mothers can never be too good, never too vigilant." My review of @amandahess.bsky.social's Second Life in @theobserveruk.bsky.social tinyurl.com/48mxhcv3

For Mother’s Day, I talked to @amandahess.bsky.social about her exceptional new book, Second Life. And the digital economy of surveilling, selling and performing motherhood. slate.com/podcasts/wha...

Sending Second Life to all my friends who are/have been growing babies and raising them. My review of @amandahess.bsky.social’s brilliant first book, in @theobserveruk.bsky.social observer.co.uk/culture/book...

My first pregnancy was a lot. I had an amniocentesis at 7 months. A fetal MRI to map the baby’s brain. A four-week wait for a diagnosis. A c-section and instant transfer to the NICU. For those weeks I wanted to no longer exist in my body. I listened to this podcast instead:

I have written many healthcare stories, but never before have I written about my own health. I decided to do so after learning one of my drugs costs nearly $1,000 a pill and just 25 cents to make. What I found was an incredible story of discovery and exploitation. www.propublica.org/article/revl...

I wrote about the relentless branding of “mama,” for Vogue! www.vogue.com/article/the-...

I'll be at @solidstatebooksdc.bsky.social on H St. tonight talking SECOND LIFE: HAVING A CHILD IN THE DIGITAL AGE with @chaykak.bsky.social !! come out: www.solidstatebooksdc.com/events/2025/...

World Central Kitchen has run out of food to serve in Gaza. Its bakery ("recently the last working bakery in Gaza") is out of flour. There are 100,000+ tons of food in staging areas within driving distance of Gaza, and Israel refuses to let them in wck.org/news/gaza-up...

My friend @amandahess.bsky.social's debut is out this week. Speaking as a fellow special needs parent, there's simply no one in our generation writing more truthfully about that experience—the humor, the fear, the awe. Whether or not you're a parent, as a human being you should read it.

Speaking of books out today, there's a remarkable number by writers whose work I've admired for a long time. The excerpt from @amandahess.bsky.social's new book was gutting, and I can't wait to read the rest bookshop.org/p/books/seco...

Buy Amanda's wonderful book!

Two wonderful books are out today that I must heartily recommend— @amandahess.bsky.social's Second Life, incredible dissection of motherhood & the internet, and my dear friend @caseyjohnston.bsky.social's A Physical Education, which is partly about weightlifting but mostly about Being A Human

you got this, mama!