Ep. 147: Lara Love Hardin (Author of The Many Lives of Mama Love) + Book Recommendations
Sarah's Bookshelves Live
Sarah Dickinson
4.9 • 732 Ratings
🗓️ 9 August 2023
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In Episode 147, Lara Love Hardin joins me to discuss her memoir, The Many Lives of Mama Love. Lara shares her journey from opioid addict (funded through credit card theft) to successful ghostwriter. Her warm and candid storytelling touches on themes of forgiveness, redemption, and unwavering resilience, demonstrating people’s ability to triumph over life’s darkest moments. This was a five-star book for me, and I am thrilled to explore such a deeply felt journey with Lara.
This post contains affiliate links through which I make a small commission when you make a purchase (at no cost to you!).
Highlights
- Lara’s overview of The Many Lives of Mama Love without spoilers.
- Her decision to open up publicly about her past.
- Shame, its debilitating effects, and the fears Lara faced prior to her book’s release.
- The impact of the memoir on Lara’s family.
- Complexities of motherhood alongside her struggles with addiction.
- Why Lara views going to jail as the best thing that ever happened to her and how it shaped her perspective on life.
- How her time in jail cultivated empathy, which she considers the most important quality to be a good ghostwriter.
- The heartwarming story of Lara’s struggle to land a good job during her parole and how one person believing in you can change your life.
- The original title of The Many Lives of Mama Love and the evolution of the book’s identity.
- A potential topic for an upcoming book.
Lara’s Book Recommendations [33:59]
Two OLD Books She Loves
- Ma and Me by Putsata Reang | Amazon | Bookshop.org [34:48]
- In the Shadow of the Mountain by Silvia Vasquez-Lavado | Amazon | Bookshop.org [36:03]
Two NEW Books She Loves
- Yellowface by R. F. Kuang | Amazon | Bookshop.org [38:22]
- Identity by Nora Roberts | Amazon | Bookshop.org [40:07]
One Book She Didn’t Love
- Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens | Amazon
| Bookshop.org [41:47]
Two NEW RELEASES She’s Excited About
- Safe by Mark Daley (January 30, 2024) | Amazon
- Only Say Good Things by Crystal Hefner (January 23, 2024) | Amazon
Last 5-Star Book Lara Read
-
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus | Amazon | Bookshop.org [47:45]
Other Links
About Lara Love Hardin
Website | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
Lara Love Hardin is the President and Founder of True Literary a full-service boutique literary agency.
Hardin has an MFA in creative writing and is a 4-time New York Times bestselling writer, including the #1 New York Times bestseller Designing Your Life by Dave Evans and Bill Burnett, and 2018 Oprah Book Club pick, The Sun Does Shine, which she co-authored with Anthony Ray Hinton about his 30 years as an innocent man on Alabama’s death row. There are well over a million copies sold of the many books she has written, and you can find her on the title page and in the acknowledgments of books by Nelson Mandela, John Gottman, Evy Poumpouras, and other luminary authors on the Idea Architects roster.
In 2019 she won a Christopher Award for her work “affirming the highest values of the human spirit.” In 2019, she was also nominated for an NAACP Image Award, won the Moore Prize in the UK, and was short-listed for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. In 2020, she launched her own division within Idea Architects (Idea Architects: True) as a literary agent specializing in memoir.
She lives in La Selva Beach, California with her third husband, three dogs, three cats, and three teenagers. She also has 21 chickens, four ducks, and three adult sons who live at home on holidays and big laundry days.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Sarah's Bookshelves Live. I'm Sarah of Sarah's Bookshelves. Each week, I talk with a bookish |
| 0:15.4 | guest about two old books they love, two new books they love, one book they do not love, and one new release |
| 0:22.0 | they're excited about. We're going to get real and sometimes a bit snarky about all things, |
| 0:26.8 | books. If you like the show, I'd love it if you follow the show in your podcast player, |
| 0:31.7 | spread the word to your reader friends, post about it on your social media, or support the show |
| 0:37.4 | on Patreon at patreon.com slash |
| 0:41.2 | Sarah's bookshelves. |
| 0:42.7 | Supporting the show on Patreon gets you access to bonus podcast episodes and lots of other goodies. |
| 0:48.3 | There's also a link in the show notes and in my Instagram bio. |
| 0:51.9 | Let's get rolling. |
| 0:53.0 | You might remember Catherine sharing the memoir, |
| 0:56.0 | The Many Lives of Mama Love by Laura Love Harden on the summer preview episode. Neither of us |
| 1:01.7 | had read it at that point, but I now have read it and it was unequivocally a five-star book for me. |
| 1:07.8 | Laura kicks the book off by talking about her first ever addiction, which was reading, |
| 1:12.0 | and then she beautifully segues into her drug addiction later in life. She shares her fall and |
| 1:17.7 | rise of a story in a highly engaging writing style that kept me totally turning the pages. I could |
| 1:23.4 | not put this book down. So I am thrilled to welcome Laura Love Harden, author of The Many |
| 1:29.9 | Lives of Mama Love to the podcast. She is a literary agent, author, and president of True |
| 1:35.5 | Literary. Prior to founding True Literary, she was the co-CEO of Idea Architects. She has an MFA |
| 1:42.1 | in creative writing and is a four-time New York Times bestselling |
| 1:45.2 | collaborative writer, including the number one bestseller Designing Your Life and the Oprah |
| 1:49.9 | Book Club pick The Sun Does Shine, which she co-authored with Anthony Ray Hinton. She was nominated |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Sarah Dickinson, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Sarah Dickinson and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.