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.

Sometimes the voice of a narrator captivates me from the beginning to the end of book, and this was the case with How I Live Now.

It’s an unusual novel, and I don’t mean that as a criticism, but as a compliment. Elements of speculative romance/forbidden love infuse the dystopian, near-future setting—pastoral England on the threat of nuclear destruction.

The central character, Daisy, is sent from Manhattan to live with her cousins, and when her aunt heads off on a work-related trip, the kids are left to fend for themselves and navigate what feels like the potential end of the world. Will their relationships survive? Will they? Read and find out.

I read this novel in a single day when I was in high school. It is about a struggling farming community in Haiti that comes together against all odds to build a better future. This book is lively and told with compassion.

I found Roumain’s exploration of the Haitian psyche in this book revealing; it taught me much about rural Haitian culture. Reading this book at a young age put me on the path to becoming an aid worker focusing on food security. In fact, I dedicated my first book to the Masters of the Dew. 

Obviously, Hannah is a brilliant writer.

She checks all the boxes that I hunt for in thirties fiction. The Great Depression, family, and the persistent drive of a protagonist (Elsa) to survive in the midst of harsh adversity. I love when an author paints vivid word pictures of this era, and Hannah does a superb job (as usual).

I want to feel the thirties, to actually mentally become a participant in experiencing what the characters experience. Hannah does just that.