Welcome to motherhood - a land of aching fatigue, constant self-sacrifice and thankless servitude, a land of bottomless devotion, small hands and feet like warm pink roses, and velvet kisses. Here is a land where men and women, once carefree and engrossed in work and sex, now try to solve age-old arguments and search fruitlessly for another hour in the day. Perhaps you know this land well, or perhaps you're entering it for the first time - either way, you need these honest, sharply funny, humane stories from an expert guide.

Selected from Helen Simpson's short story collections Dear George, Hey Yeah Right Get a Life and Constitutional

VINTAGE MINIS: GREAT MINDS. BIG IDEAS. LITTLE BOOKS.