Books like All the Places to Love — picked by fans

A spunky and accomplished businesswoman and author, Kate White carved her own highly successful career and provides a practical and proven how-to for women to follow. Women wear many hats simultaneously (Think Seuss’ Ten Apples Up On Top) and Kate gives witty, wise, straight-talk for moms on how to balance parenting and craft a career you enjoy. You have talents and potential, I Shouldn’t Be Telling You This is step-by-step guidance to hone your abilities and navigate challenges. These are essential tips from the gutsy innovator who helped increase Cosmopolitan Magazine's circulation by half a million copies per month.

This book completely reshaped how I think about courage, connection, and what it really means to live a meaningful life.

She challenges the idea that vulnerability is weakness and instead shows it as one of the truest forms of strength. The concepts are easy to understand but not always easy to practice. It gently pushes you to look at how you show up in your relationships, how you handle shame, and how often we protect ourselves by blaming, judging, or staying silent.

What I love most is how she blends deep research with so much humanity. She writes with scientific credibility but also with warmth, humility, and a feeling that she’s speaking directly to you.

Even though this book has been around for a while, its message still feels incredibly relevant. It’s the kind of read that stays with you and quietly changes the way you think, act, and connect.

The surest way I’ve found to break the cycle of materialism is to develop an aesthetic for less, then face head-on the results of past consumptive behaviors. Marie Kondo’s book is the best there is on this subject. When stepping out of the rat race, many folks have a tendency to hoard as a fear reflex. Kondo’s words and wisdom, even if you can’t bring yourself to follow every last dictum, will help you see and feel the effects of materialism, and naturally shed that compulsion to “have more.” I was always an “anti-consumer.” But it felt like a strict diet — I was resisting a compulsion to acquire more. 

After this book, then following her recommendations, that compulsion went away for good. I didn’t just think less was better. I felt it down to my core. My savings grew, my house got cleaner (relatively speaking), and I became far… show more.

The Chosen book is good, and Jerry Jenkins’ many titles including the blockbuster Left Behind series are worth reading, but this is a backdoor to the multi-season film series, The Chosen by Jerry’s son, Dallas Jenkins. Life doesn't turn out as we imagined, and when much that is precious has been marred, your tender heart longs to honor the holy and sacred. To know that God sees you, loves you and your child unconditionally, and never forsakes you. The Chosen is heart-mending, faith-building, and life-changing. Download the free app on your phone for the world's largest crowd-funded project, and enjoy The Chosen over and over. Family-friendly.

My only fiction pick, this classic novel set in Florida in the 1870s is about 12-year-old Jody Baxter and his friendship with a fawn. I became familiar with this coming-of-age tale in an unusual way. In seventh grade, I was on a school speech team, and one of the other kids competed in the storytelling competition using an excerpt from The Yearling. That excerpt included the moment when Jody’s father talks to him about becoming a man: “What’s he to do when he gits knocked down? Why, take it for his share and go on.” That phrase stuck with me, and was even more powerful years later when I read the novel in its entirety and learned all that Jody had gone through by the time he and his father reached that moment.

This graphic novel is based on Lucy’s real life. It’s about a girl who begrudgingly moves from her home in the city to the country to live with her mom’s new boyfriend and share a bedroom with his daughters. I love this one because when you’re a kid, so many things are out of your control, and grown-ups are the ones making decisions for you. Sometimes, kids are forced to learn a whole new way of life. Stepping Stones is a great depiction of that experience—an experience I can relate to as someone whose mom remarried and then had to move towns and schools. I love how the main character, Jen, is terrible at math but has to handle money at the farmer’s market. She spends the summer persevering through her math troubles, her embarrassment related to it, and her new family and farm work expectations. 

I loved this book because it shows how class disparity still exists, how it complicates a teenage love affair and transcends family secrets.

As a reader, I found myself rooting for all of the main characters, though they are facing impossible choices, working against each other and their own best interests, which are mercurial and contradictory.

Fast-moving and propulsive storytelling.

This exquisitely written, dark saga of family intrigue is worth reading over and over, and I do.

The protagonist’s devotion to family and the land that feed her, both physically and emotionally, is rich and consuming.

Events are seen from her point of view and her antagonist’s, giving opposing slants that generate an exquisite tension throughout the book.

This story was instrumental in my education as a writer, as was the author, both showing the use of deep interiority in every character, and a setting that made me live within the story.

Unlike the novels of warfare and suffering, The Moonflower Vine is an intimate portrait of family life, set in 1920s Missouri. It was a bestseller when it was first published in the early 1960s, but has since suffered neglect. But it richly rewards the reader with its heartfelt depiction of three sisters and their aging parents, whose passions, aspirations, and failures are portrayed with complex sensitivity. I don’t think historical novels have to focus on historical events – capturing the spirit of an era is just as important. And this novel took me into rural life of a hundred years ago with great generosity.

I love this book for so many reasons.

First, the author uses the most beautiful language that reads like poetry. Second, though the story of what the author experienced is heart wrenching, she does such a great job of offering so much hope and joy in her words. As I’ve learned from my own hard experiences, gratitude is the key to living a full and abundant life.

Voskamp describes in every page how her choosing joy over despair is what keeps her going in life. Her joy and gratitude are contagious and leaves the reader wanting to know more about how they too can find this same gratitude in life and come to know her God.