Here are 100 books that [Available] fans have personally recommended if you like
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A friend once observed, “You know, Laurie, you’re a weirdo magnet.” I vigorously contested this label, all the while knowing he was right. And, so, I myself have experienced wildly outrageous dates, with what my friend dubbed “the weird.” These dates, while not ending in marriage, did provide endless fodder for my writing. What made them tick? Why did I attract them? Were they always weird? The weird, I discovered, make excellent characters, filled with idiosyncrasies, mysteries, and lessons to teach me and my readers.
I rarely see a book cover the dating world from this author’s vantage point: as a long-married woman entering the dating world after 25 years with an “I’m open to anything” attitude, yet with the gravitas and insight of a successful Manhattan psychotherapist.
Her forays into the worlds of polyamory and swinging made me go, “Wait! Stop! Go home!” Her bravery and vulnerability left me breathless. But then I realized that to find intimacy, those are the very qualities you must marshal. Equal parts action-packed and introspective, the book gave me the tools to look at my own social life.
For fans of Eat Pray Love and Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, a therapist's tale of mid-life sexual awakening as she bravely explores relationships, sex, and pleasure - and learns that it's never too late to desire and be desired. Is it ever too late to connect to the sexual part of yourself? At forty-eight years old, after her husband announced he had fallen in love with a man, Alisa Kriegel was determined to finally figure out this essential part of herself. As a psychologist, she had the tools to help others; now, it was time to help herself.…
A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.
German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…
A friend once observed, “You know, Laurie, you’re a weirdo magnet.” I vigorously contested this label, all the while knowing he was right. And, so, I myself have experienced wildly outrageous dates, with what my friend dubbed “the weird.” These dates, while not ending in marriage, did provide endless fodder for my writing. What made them tick? Why did I attract them? Were they always weird? The weird, I discovered, make excellent characters, filled with idiosyncrasies, mysteries, and lessons to teach me and my readers.
In her late forties, Lithgow embarks on a dating campaign that proves wildly funny and often outrageous.
Her descriptions are enormously entertaining, but what I liked best about the book is that the author grows from her year of “putting herself out there.” She comes to fascinating realizations, both about her dates and about herself – revelations that I could apply to my own self.
After two life-shaking events-losing her father and divorcing the man she's spent half her life with, who happens to be an actor from a famous family-Rachel Lithgow leaves a thirty-year career to write full time and pursue a relationship with a calming, delightful man she recently met online. She thinks she has it all figured out... until he announces he's joining a cult and moving to Phoenix with a blonde real estate agent. Through a year of terrible dates, peppered with a few great experiences and a lot of pinot noir, the author learns that patterns can be changed, that…
A friend once observed, “You know, Laurie, you’re a weirdo magnet.” I vigorously contested this label, all the while knowing he was right. And, so, I myself have experienced wildly outrageous dates, with what my friend dubbed “the weird.” These dates, while not ending in marriage, did provide endless fodder for my writing. What made them tick? Why did I attract them? Were they always weird? The weird, I discovered, make excellent characters, filled with idiosyncrasies, mysteries, and lessons to teach me and my readers.
In this boldly candid memoir, Lyz Lenz chronicles her escape from a marriage missing mutuality and respect only to discover the same phenomenon at play in the dating market.
I felt less alone in my shock at what men say to me on dates when I read what dates said to Lenz, a beautiful, successful writer: “If you want to be with me, you’ll need to be a better cook,” and “your professional accomplishments are not as impressive as my dick.”
But ultimately, what I liked best about the book is Lenz’s hard-won conclusion – to never again lose herself in a man.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A deeply validating manifesto on the gender politics of marriage (bad) and divorce (actually pretty good!) in America today, and an argument that the former needs a reboot—from journalist and proud divorcée Lyz Lenz
“This American Ex-Wife is a bomb, a bouquet (but not a wedding bouquet), a memoir, a manifesto, and a total joy to read.”—Rebecca Solnit, author of Men Explain Things to Me
AN ELECTRIC LIT BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR
Studies show that nearly 70 percent of divorces are initiated by women—women who are tired, fed up, exhausted, and unhappy. We've all…
Delve into this internationally best-selling series, now complete! A fast paced laugh-out-loud mix of Urban Fantasy and Mystery.
I can tell when you’re lying. Every. Single. Time. I’m Jinx, a PI hired to find a missing university student, I hope to find her propped up at a bar–yet my gut…
A friend once observed, “You know, Laurie, you’re a weirdo magnet.” I vigorously contested this label, all the while knowing he was right. And, so, I myself have experienced wildly outrageous dates, with what my friend dubbed “the weird.” These dates, while not ending in marriage, did provide endless fodder for my writing. What made them tick? Why did I attract them? Were they always weird? The weird, I discovered, make excellent characters, filled with idiosyncrasies, mysteries, and lessons to teach me and my readers.
This collection of personal essays, culled from 8,000+ submitted each year to the New York Times “Modern Love” column, absolutely sings!
What I liked best about this book of true stories about love is the revelation that everyone is inherently a storyteller. That’s because conflict is part of everyone’s life, and conflict, by definition, equals drama.
How revelatory to witness an artful 1,000 words woven out of the day a woman’s flirty email to her new beau is not answered, at least not right away. Also, I loved the writing style of each essay, as if the reader is eavesdropping on two friends telling it like it is over a cup of coffee.
The most popular, provocative, and unforgettable essays from the past fifteen years of the New York Times “Modern Love” column—including stories from the anthology series starring Tina Fey, Andy Garcia, Anne Hathaway, Catherine Keener, Dev Patel, and John Slattery
A young woman goes through the five stages of ghosting grief. A man's promising fourth date ends in the emergency room. A female lawyer with bipolar disorder experiences the highs and lows of dating. A widower hesitates about introducing his children to his new girlfriend. A divorcée in her seventies looks back at the beauty and rubble of past relationships.
Marcia Naomi Berger's passion is to help people create lasting, fulfilling marriages. An experienced clinical social worker, psychotherapist, and medical school clinical faculty member, Berger has held senior-level positions in child welfare, alcoholism treatment, and psychiatry. She says, "I stayed single for a long time because of my parent's divorce. Now happily married for over thirty-four years, I fill my books with the hard-earned wisdom I've gained professionally and personally."
I found this book engaging and fun to read. It's filled with well-written, informative stories of many women's first dates. Some of the dismal dates remind me of the saying, "You have to kiss a lot of frogs before you find your prince."
Sometimes my mouth would drop open in shock while reading about a miserable first date. Other stories had happy endings. Some couples continued dating and married. Others had successful first dates because the people liked each other but decided then, or after a few dates, that they weren't a good fit for a romantic relationship.
First Date Stories makes for a friendly, optimistic companion to women experiencing the ups and downs of dating. It reassures them that they are not alone, worthy, and likely to succeed in reaching their goal if they persevere. The implication is that every first date is successful because of the learning it…
Ellen meets Jim at a posh restaurant, hoping for an evening of fine wine and better conversation. Maria sets out on a walk with a man she's been looking forward to meeting. In First Date Stories, these women, and others, enter into initial liaisons with well-honed expectations-and come out on the other side with extraordinary tales to tell.
Chances are, every woman in her mid-thirties and over who is seeking a loving companion has a first date tale of triumph or disaster. Each of the candid and memorable stories Jodi Klein shares here imparts a bit of wisdom-with the help…
I'm a “storyseeker” as much as a storyteller. I love hearing people’s ordinary and extraordinary stories; they inspire and motivate me and make me feel hopeful. I think our stories are the most precious things we have, and our greatest legacy. They help us understand each other better and connect us to people we may otherwise never get to meet. That’s why I wrote a book of personal stories called 30 Days: Stories of Gratitude, Traditions, and Wisdom and a 30 Days Journal that helps people record their own stories, by answering a prompt each day for a month. For a nonprofit I help lead called KindWorks, my title is CIO—Chief Inspiration Officer!
I love reading stories of how ordinary people achieve extraordinary things by overcoming challenges, believing in their dreams, and not accepting defeat.
The 100 stories of women featured in this book, along with exquisite portraits of each by female artists, start with the words of a traditional fairy tale “Once upon a time…”, but instead of tales of helpless princesses there are inspiring portraits of women with grit, smarts, and tenacity. Heroes in every sense of the word, for all of us, young and old, to admire.
What if the princess didn't marry Prince Charming but instead went on to be an astronaut? What if the jealous step sisters were supportive and kind? And what if the queen was the one really in charge of the kingdom? Illustrated by sixty female artists from every corner of the globe, Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls introduces us to one hundred remarkable women and their extraordinary lives, from Ada Lovelace to Malala, Elizabeth I to Serena Williams. Empowering, moving and inspirational, these are true fairy tales for heroines who definitely don't need rescuing.
On the morning of December 26, 2004, an undersea earthquake struck off the coast of Sumatra in the Indian Ocean. The resulting tsunami killed an estimated 230,000 people across fourteen countries, from Indonesia to Sri Lanka to Thailand to the Maldives to India and all the way to East Africa.…
From a youth devouring the books of Bruce Catton to my formative years as a historian, I’ve been fascinated by the Civil War, especially the thinking and experiences of southerners who lived through the cataclysmic war years. In my teaching and writing, I’ve tried to focus on the lived experiences, the hopes and fears, of southerners who seemingly embraced secession and an independent Southern Confederacy in the expectation of a short, victorious war only to become disenchanted when the war they thought would come to pass turned into a long, bloody stalemate. The books I’ve listed share my passion for the war and open new and often unexpected windows into the Confederate experience.
A great book for teaching me how much the wartime experiences and political resistance of the soldiers’ wives and the slaves impacted the fate of the Confederacy and pushed it in directions never imagined by the planters who created the Confederacy to serve their interests and not the majority of the population they expected to do their bidding.
Pulitzer Prize Finalist Winner of the Frederick Douglass Book Prize Winner of the Merle Curti Award
"McCurry strips the Confederacy of myth and romance to reveal its doomed essence. Dedicated to the proposition that men were not created equal, the Confederacy had to fight a two-front war. Not only against Union armies, but also slaves and poor white women who rose in revolt across the South. Richly detailed and lucidly told, Confederate Reckoning is a fresh, bold take on the Civil War that every student of the conflict should read." -Tony Horwitz, author of Confederates in the Attic
I moved to New York when I was 15 and fell in love with the city. I was starting high school then, and arriving in Manhattan felt like the world opened up to me. Suddenly, I could ride the subway anywhere I wanted, see the best theater in the world, and feel as if anything was possible. The female journey has also been a topic I have long been fascinated by, and when I began my journalism career and became a wife and mother, the need to explore those dynamics grew ever more pressing. I recommend these books because they combine my two favorite topics—New York and women’s history.
This book is a deeply researched account of one of the most famous women-only hotels, the go-to place for ambitious, aspiring career women from writers like Joan Didion and Sylvia Plath to actresses like Ali MacGraw and Jaclyn Smith. It is my favorite kind of history, a journey through the twentieth century told through the lives of fascinating women.
A “captivating portrait” (The Wall Street Journal), both “poignant and intriguing” (The New Republic): from award-winning author Paulina Bren comes the remarkable history of New York’s most famous residential hotel and the women who stayed there, including Grace Kelly, Sylvia Plath, and Joan Didion.
Welcome to New York’s legendary hotel for women, the Barbizon.
Liberated after WWI from home and hearth, women flocked to New York City during the Roaring Twenties. But even as women’s residential hotels became the fashion, the Barbizon stood out; it was designed for young women with artistic aspirations, and included soaring art studios and…
In college, I studied Literature with a capital L: those timeless classics the professors worship and revere. Then a woman in a used book store in Seattle handed me a copy of Jim Thompson's Pop. 1280 and said, "Read this." I was hooked. The pulp fiction of the 1950s is visceral and raw. Like Greek tragedy, it examines the darker drives of human nature--greed, lust, loneliness, anger--and their consequences. Pulp writers were paid by the word to crank out lurid thrills. But like Shakespeare writing for the groundlings, some of them just couldn't help going above and beyond. Their work remains in print because it hits on universal truths that still resonate today.
When news editor Earl Janoth murders his mistress, there's only one witness who can tie him to the crime scene. Janoth doesn't know who the witness is, but he knows everywhere the man went in the 24 hours before the murder, because the murder victim told him before he killed her.
Janoth is determined to find and silence him. He assigns reporter George Stroud to track the man down, not knowing that Stroud himself is the man he's looking for. Stroud is forced to assemble a team to hunt himself, knowing that when he's found, he'll be killed.
This is the best-plotted book I've ever read, both in concept and execution. Little details sprinkled through early chapters of the book keep coming back to have major significance as the noose tightens around Stroud.
George Stroud, executive editor at Crimeways magazine, is involved with the wrong woman - his boss's. When Janoth, the boss, kills her in an argument, he tries to pin the crime on a man seen outside her home just before the murder. He assigns his best investigative reporter - Stroud - to find the man. Trouble is, the man was Stroud himself ...An audacious and ironic novel of terror and high tension.
Nelson West, a former Chicago homicide detective, is hired by wealthy heir Lionel Bing to discreetly help “fix” scandals and legal problems for his father’s wealthy friends.
Bing, a brilliant but troubled investigator, suffers from PTSD symptoms as a result of being kidnapped and witnessing the murder of his mother…
I grew up in Los Angeles in the 80s and 90s. I was a shy teenager, an obsessive reader, and a secret writer. I went to an all-girls high school where we wore uniforms, did a lot of homework, and mostly had no idea how to meet boys. The teen girls I encountered in movies, TV shows, and even literature were sexualized to the point of being unrecognizable to me. Now that I work with teenagers (and am a mom to one), I’m fascinated by the variability of girls this age, their wide-ranging intelligence, passions, and ways of being in the world. I love novels that reflect that complexity.
I loved this book because it’s the best illustration of the stepmother-stepdaughter relationship that I’ve ever read. Flo and Rose’s conflicts over work, sex, and a woman’s place in the world made me remember exactly what it was like to be a teenager struggling to relate to older women in my life.
Like many of Alice Munro’s celebrated short stories, it’s about a young woman growing up in rural Ontario who strains against the prejudices of her small town, especially about girls’ education and ambition. “Who do you think you are?” is the question that comes up again and again in this novel-in-stories. Used as an insult, it challenges Rose to make a different life for herself without forgetting the women who came before her.
In this series of interweaving stories, Munro recreates the evolving bond between two women in the course of almost forty years. One is Flo, practical, suspicious of other people's airs, at times dismayingly vulgar. the other is Rose, Flo's stepdaughter, a clumsy, shy girl who somehow leaves the small town she grew up in to achieve her own equivocal success in the larger world.
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