Authors@Google: Alicia Silverstone

In The Kind Diet, actress, activist, and committed conservationist Alicia Silverstone shares the insights that encouraged her to swear off meat and dairy forever, and outlines the spectacular benefits of adopting a plant-based diet, from effortless weight loss to clear skin, off-the-chart energy, and smooth digestion. She explains how meat, fish, milk, and cheese—the very foods weve been taught to regard as the cornerstone of good nutrition—are actually the culprits behind escalating rates of disease and the cause of dire, potentially permanent damage to our ecology. Alicia Silverstone, perhaps best known for her generation-defining turn in Clueless, continues to work steadily in film, television, and theater. A dynamic fixture in the acting, political, and scientific communities, she is a dedicated advocate on behalf of the planet and its animals, and was voted “Sexiest Vegetarian Alive” in 2004. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, Christopher, and their four rescued dogs. Alicia Silverstone visits Google’s Mountain View, CA headquarters as part of the Authors@Google series.

In our mothers day there were good mothers, neglectful mothers, and occasionally great mothers. Today we have only Bad Mothers. If you work, youre neglectful; if you stay home, youre smothering. If you discipline, youre buying them a spot on the shrinks couch; if you let them run wild, they will be into drugs by seventh grade. If you buy organic, youre spending their college fund; if you dont, youre risking all sorts of allergies and illnesses. Is it any wonder so many women refer to themselves at one time or another as a bad mother? Ayelet Waldman says its time for women to get over it and get on with it, in a book that is sure to spark the same level of controversy as her now legendary Modern Love piece, in which she confessed to loving her husband more than her children. Covering topics as diverse as the hysteria of competitive parenting (Whose toddler can recite the planets in order from the sun?), the relentless pursuits of the Bad Mother police, balancing the work-family dynamic, and the bane of every mothers existence (homework, that is), Bad Mother illuminates the anxieties that riddle motherhood today, while providing women with the encouragement they need to give themselves a break.