Books like A Rather English Marriage — picked by fans

This sophisticated, darkly humorous, and quirky short novel, translated from the French, is unlike anything else I have ever read.

The narrator is still obsessed with her husband after many years of marriage. She smothers him with devotion, and her demands for proof of his love eventually go too far. The story becomes quite farcical in places.

I suspect some readers would hate this book, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Early in my medical career, I spent a year as a country GP, also worked in an old county mental asylum, and this book set in the rural west of England brought back many memories of those times.

It involves the relationship between four characters, a doctor and a farmer, and their respective wives. Both women are expecting their first child. Their isolation and hardship during the freezing winter of 1962 increase the tensions among them.

The landscape is vividly described in this detailed and evocative literary novel.

I’d describe this novel as bittersweet. While readable and humorous, it touches on profound questions about marriage, family and religion.

The narrator is the neglected wife of a country vicar who is totally absorbed in the service of his church. The frustrations of her domestic life and the foibles of the ladies of the parish are closely observed and gently parodied. The monotony is broken, and things become more serious, when a chance encounter leads to a total reassessment of the marital relationship.

This book, published in the 1870s, is sometimes considered the best English novel ever written.

It is a monumental work, and while I found it very impressive, I have to admit that reading the long and detailed text felt heavy going at times.

Set in a provincial town with a large cast of characters, it depicts a middle-class way of life very different from that of today, and addresses various social and political questions of the time. One major theme is the psychology of marriage as analysed through the relationships between two ill-matched couples.

A houseful of women, moving from their long-term home in New Zealand to a new location by the sea. What you get in this short tale is an accumulation of moments that add up to an intense mosaic of the life of women in a male-dominated family.

From the little girl Kezia to the pregnant wife Linda, from the sometimes benevolent grandmother to the handyman who chops off the head of a live duck to see it still running, this book enthralls in its detail, its poetic and emotional resonance, and the insights it gives into female consciousness in a world of constrictions.

Don’t look for ‘what happens next’; look instead for the diamond facets the story reveals in every sentence. When you get to the end, you may feel that this book is a jewel beyond price. 

This isn’t the easiest of reads, but it is the Real Thing – the work of the man who discovered the Triangle itself.

I love its density and the fact that I can come back to it over and over again and find new ideas. Dr Karpman’s long experience as a working therapist speaks out from every page. 

This is not a best-seller graphic novel, you don’t see this book on every bookstore shelf. I discovered it because of Nina Mickwitz’s Documentary Comics. I ordered it from the library network that we had at my grad school. My degeneration is a Jewel of a book in many senses, it is a sincere book, a dialogue that goes through many channels: the images drawn, the text typed, and the way the book was made. The shifting in the line makes you think about the process and the author not just as a character but as a person experiencing the world from certain conditions and telling you about that experience.

This classic book on trading has stood the test of time. Markets have changed, but the insights in this book about trader psychology remain important. Knowledge and analysis really matter in trading, but as the authors argue, you can’t master trading without ‘winning the inner game.’

Drawing on insights from sports coaching, psychology, and interviews with traders, the authors explore what it means to win the inner game and stop sabotaging yourself.

Psychology is easy to misunderstand. When I decided it was going to be my undergraduate major, it was because I wanted to understand how the mind worked, broadly, what makes people tick, and how they can be guided or helped when they get stuck or have problems. I assumed this knowledge existed and that majoring in psychology would reveal it to me. 

I was more than surprised when I attended my first psychology class. The professor sat cross-legged on top of a desk. He had long hair and a beard (unusual in 1963), and he spoke as if he had just taken a drug, which he likely had. He used profane language, the first time I had heard that word in a public place. He blathered for about 30 minutes, saying nothing of importance to the subject I was interested in. 

I stayed in the class and continued the major… show more.

We've all got an opinion on the musings, motivations, and state of mind of Bruce Wayne and Batman.

Instead of just idle musings, Travis Langley goes on a deep dive into the tormented and traumatized (or is it really?) life of the Dark Knight. Reading Batman and Psychology gave me a different perspective on the blurry lines separating Bruce Wayne and Batman.

Highly recommended read!