Listen to Elizabeth Benedict, Eleanor Clift, and Susan Stamberg discuss their new anthology, What My Mother Gave Me: Thirty-One Women on the Gifts That Mattered Most:

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It all began with a scarf. It was a simple gift from an ailing mother to her daughter, the writer Elizabeth Benedict, but over time the scarf became a symbol of their close and complex relationship. Benedict began to wonder whether other women had received similar presents from their own mothers, gifts that summed up their unique mother/daughter dynamics. The result is What My Mother Gave Me, a collection of essays by a wide range of women, including two who joined Benedict in conversation at Politics & Prose: Newsweek columnist and political commentator Eleanor Clift, and NPR special correspondent Susan Stamberg.

“Live at Politics & Prose” is a biweekly program from Slate Radio featuring some of today’s best writers reading from their new work and answering audience questions at Washington D.C.’s famous bookstore. You can subscribe for free through iTunes or with our RSS Feed to catch all upcoming episodes.

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