Here are 100 books that Committed fans have personally recommended if you like
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I’m a physical therapist, certified yoga therapist, and Hakomi practitioner who has spent over twenty-five years helping people heal from physical and emotional pain through the integration of yoga, mindfulness and western medicine. My passion for this topic comes from my own transformation—moving through trauma and burnout into a life guided by mindfulness, movement, and compassion. I’ve seen again and again that presence is the medicine that changes everything. Writing and teaching about this path feels like offering others the same lifeline that once saved me.
This book met me in one of the darkest seasons of my life after my second divorce.
Pema Chödrön’s voice feels like a steady heartbeat—calm, wise, and utterly human. She doesn’t promise to remove pain; she invites us to stay present with it. Every page taught me that courage isn’t the absence of fear but the willingness to face it with open eyes and a soft heart.
I return to this book whenever I need to remember that groundlessness is not failure; it can be the greatest freedom.
Pema Choedroen reveals the vast potential for happiness, wisdom and courage even in the most painful circumstances.
Pema Choedroen teaches that there is a fundamental opportunity for happiness right within our reach, yet we usually miss it - ironically, while we are caught up in attempt to escape pain and suffering.
This accessible guide to compassionate living shows us how we can use painful emotions to cultivate wisdom, compassion and courage, ways of communication that lead to openness and true intimacy with others, practices for reversing our negative habitual patterns, methods for working with chaotic situations and ways…
Nineteen: A Daughter's Memoir of Reckoning and Recovery
by
Leslie Johansen Nack,
At nineteen, her larger-than-life father dies suddenly in a plane crash in Mexico. In the wake of his death, she descends into addiction—caught in a downward spiral, her only solace is her next fix. Ultimately, however, Leslie’s story is one of resilience: she chooses sobriety and happiness, builds a healthy…
My first experience with divorce happened when I was still in diapers with the highly contentious separation of my parents, who were far too young to do it any differently. Mostly because there was no guidance for how to divorce well back in the 1950s. Shame, victimization, and unresolved rage were the atmosphere I grew up in. I’d like to say they eventually worked it out, yet it wasn’t until 60 years later that they could be in the same room and be civil. When my husband (now affectionately called my wasband) and I divorced, I’m beyond grateful that we decided it doesn’t have to be that way.
This classic has been around for decades for good reason. I found it when I suffered my first heartbreak at the age of 18, when my boyfriend of 3 years and I broke up. I felt adrift, alone, devastated, and lost. I was so overcome with grief that no one–not even my best friend-could reach me. Yet this book did.
I felt mirrored in my sorrow and comforted by the format, which offered bits of truth and wisdom in bite-sized pieces. I believed the authors that this too would pass, and felt a ray of hope in the dark. If you are in the early stage of heartbreak, this book can be a lifesaver.
One of the most directly helpful books on the subject of loss ever written, the first edition of this comforting and inspiring book, published in 1976, sold nearly two million copies. This completely revised and expanded edition encompasses not only the medical and psychological advances in the treatment of loss, but also the authors' own experiences.
My first experience with divorce happened when I was still in diapers with the highly contentious separation of my parents, who were far too young to do it any differently. Mostly because there was no guidance for how to divorce well back in the 1950s. Shame, victimization, and unresolved rage were the atmosphere I grew up in. I’d like to say they eventually worked it out, yet it wasn’t until 60 years later that they could be in the same room and be civil. When my husband (now affectionately called my wasband) and I divorced, I’m beyond grateful that we decided it doesn’t have to be that way.
I love authors who think for themselves. People who look at the state of the world, question the status quo, and wonder how to make things just a little bit better. Constance Ahrons was one of these women, and for this reason, she’s a hero of mine.
While conscious divorce is finally coming into vogue, she was the one who pioneered the idea back in the early 90s. The research she did on the impact a bad divorce had on kids was unprecedented and radical for that time.
As someone who divorced my daughter’s father when she was still young, I found that this book provided a practical roadmap on how to do this well that is still highly relevant today.
Based on two decades of groundbreaking research, The Good Divorce presents the surprising finding that in more than fifty percent of divorces couples end their marriages, yet preserve their families. Dr. Ahrons shows couples how they can move beyond the confusing, even terrifying early stages of breakup and learn to deal with the transition from a nuclear to a "binuclear" family--one that spans two households and continues to meet the needs of children.
The Good Divorce makes an important contribution to the ongoing "family values" debate by dispelling the myth that…
This page-turner, thrilling adventure thoroughly immerses readers into a dramatic and isolated Tanzanian wilderness, where the author vividly recreates every sensory detail from her memory. You'll hear a lion's roar near your remote tent site, feel the jolts of fear when agitated hippos surround your inflatable raft, feel aching shoulders…
My first experience with divorce happened when I was still in diapers with the highly contentious separation of my parents, who were far too young to do it any differently. Mostly because there was no guidance for how to divorce well back in the 1950s. Shame, victimization, and unresolved rage were the atmosphere I grew up in. I’d like to say they eventually worked it out, yet it wasn’t until 60 years later that they could be in the same room and be civil. When my husband (now affectionately called my wasband) and I divorced, I’m beyond grateful that we decided it doesn’t have to be that way.
I just like Susan Elliot. She’s decent, smart, and deeply devoted to mental health. Particularly at a time when one is vulnerable to a lack of the latter!
I found Susan’s advice to be sound and helpful. When I was at my worst, the thoughts in my head would easily loop in self-destructive ways. By focusing on the questions Susan provides, I was able to stay the course to grow myself beyond the version of me that made the mistakes I’d made. Rather than getting stuck in PTSD, Susan’s book helped me to turn it all into post-traumatic growth.
A proven plan for overcoming the painful end of any romantic relationship, including divorce, with practical strategies for healing, getting your confidence back, and finding true love
It's over--and it really hurts. But as unbelievable as it may seem when you are in the throes of heartache, you can move past your breakup. Forget about trying to win your ex back. Forget about losing yourself and trying to make this person love you. Starting today, this breakup is the best time to change your life for the better, inside and out. Through her workshops and popular blog, Susan Elliott has…
I am an academic who writes about gender and media culture. At the start of my career, I often wrote about silent and classical-era Hollywood, and I still teach these periods, but most of my research now focuses on the contemporary era and the complexities of gender, class, and consumer culture. My current project is a study of the broken customer service culture and the anti-social effects of technologization called I’m Sorry You Feel That Way:’ Affect, Authority and Antagonism in the Cultures of Customer Service.
Popular culture is littered with new archetypes of wifehood, both enacted (the “MILF,” the “trad wife,” the “Mormon Wife”) and aspirational (“I’m Looking for a Man in Finance”).
Leonard’s highly accessible book provides a way of thinking about this taken-for-granted category and places it in a range of critical and historical contexts. One of the most important contributions she makes is to track the emergence of the “professional wife” as a new status designation and revenue raising identity.
A fascinating look at the changing role of wives in modern America
After a half century of battling for gender equality, women have been freed from the necessity of securing a husband for economic stability, sexual fulfillment, or procreation. Marriage is a choice, and increasingly women (and men) are opting out. Yet despite these changes, the cultural power of marriage has burgeoned. What was once an obligation has become an exclusive club into which heterosexual women with the right amount of self-discipline may win entry. The newly exalted professionalized wife is no longer reliant on her husband's status or…
Having lived in China for almost three decades, I am naturally interested in the expat writing scene. I am a voracious reader of fiction and nonfiction on China, past and present. One constant in this country is change, and that requires keeping up with the latest publications by writers who have lived here and know it well. As an author of three novels, one short story collection, and three essay collections on China myself, I believe I have something of my own to contribute, although I tend to hew to gritty, offbeat themes to capture a contemporary China unknown to the West.
Absorbed by Chinese culture while a grad student in Hong Kong, Susan Blumberg-Kason is charmed into marriage with Cai, a PhD student of Taoist music from the Hubei Province backwater. Marital discord arises when the openhearted Midwesterner realizes her function as a wife is to produce a son, turn it over to his (not her) parents for upbringing, and get out of the way so the husband can carry on with his philandering and porn watching. But even as he molts his intellectual shell and his narcissistic monster emerges, Cai can also be sympathetically understood as a product of his culture. Intercultural conflict is what makes this fairy tale so readable and engrossing, with its timeless theme of the loving sweetheart enthralled and entrapped in her dark prince's perverted castle. What moved me most was Blumberg-Kason’s honesty in laying everything bare, at the risk of baring her own flaws.
A stunning memoir of an intercultural marriage gone wrong
When Susan, a shy Midwesterner in love with Chinese culture, started graduate school in Hong Kong, she quickly fell for Cai, the Chinese man of her dreams. As they exchanged vows, Susan thought she'd stumbled into an exotic fairy tale, until she realized Cai―and his culture―where not what she thought.
In her riveting memoir, Susan recounts her struggle to be the perfect traditional "Chinese" wife to her increasingly controlling and abusive husband. With keen insight and heart-wrenching candor, she confronts the hopes and hazards of intercultural marriage, including dismissing her own…
How do you create a happy life when you move away from home for the first time; or move to a new city or country for work or studies or love; or retire somewhere new? The Mobile Life guides you through the challenge of making new friends and inventing new…
Living in southern Utah for many years, I saw first-hand the polygamist communities of Colorado City, Arizona and Hilldale, Utah. It always intrigued me that these people still held on to the beliefs and teachings of the early Mormon leaders regardless of the laws or scorn of those who lived around them. The research I did for The Treasure of Cedar Creek, was about polygamy, but also the history of the area of Idaho where the novel takes place and how it would be as a woman not only trying to escape, but facing the challenges of the terrain and perceptions of the day.
I found Wall’s first-hand account of what life is like inside a polygamist cult to be both revealing and tragic. The book is nonfiction but reads like a novel. I loved how the pages were full of descriptive passages that gave me an insider’s view of what these young girls are taught and must face as child brides. It helped me see that what began decades before is still happening under a cloak of secrecy. I found this book revealing and disturbing, and one I couldn’t put down.
A tale of survival and freedom, Stolen Innocence is the story of one heroic woman who stood up for what was right and reclaimed her life.
In September 2007, a packed courtroom in St. George, Utah, sat hushed as Elissa Wall, the star witness against polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs, gave captivating testimony of how Jeffs forced her to marry her first cousin at the age of fourteen. This harrowing and vivid account proved to be the most compelling evidence against Jeffs, showing the harsh realities of the lengths to which Jeffs went in order to control the sect's…
I grew up reading murder mysteries and watching old black-and-white films on television. As a teenager, I couldn’t get enough of Agatha Christie, Raymond Chandler, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and I loved challenging myself to solve the mystery before the end of the book, sometimes successfully, sometimes not.
One thing I noticed in reading the classics is that LGBTQ+ people were either completely absent or used for comic relief or tragic effect. I wanted to change that with my stories, showing that they can be compelling protagonists, solving murders and sometimes finding love.
I was intrigued to discover an Agatha Christie book I had not previously read. I found it instantly intriguing and puzzling, with Hercule Poirot in the center of things.
The way Agatha Christie described the settings with such wonderful detail, I was instantly transported aboard the train, seeing myself as a fellow passenger, watching the mystery unfold.
Agatha Christie's classic Hercule Poirot railway mystery, reissued in a beautiful new classic hardcover edition designed to appeal to the latest generation of Agatha Christie fans and book lovers.
'You could, perhaps, love a thief, mademoiselle, but not a murderer!'
When the luxurious Blue Train arrives at Nice, a guard attempts to wake serene Ruth Kettering from her slumbers. But she will never wake again - for a heavy blow has killed her, disfiguring her features almost beyond recognition. What is more, her precious rubies are missing.
The prime suspect is Ruth's estranged husband, Derek. Yet Poirot…
Ghost stories are predominantly one flavor: horror. However, my taste in ghost fiction resembles a smoothie. Blend equal parts of contemporary suspense/mystery and the paranormal; add a splash of science, a pinch of dark family secrets, and a sprinkle of romance; and then spike with a heaping cup of twists. That’s my favorite recipe for the paranormal crossovers I love to read and write. My narration preferences are less typical, too. Ghost stories are usually told by characters being haunted. In novels I love, ghosts participate as storytellers, breathing realism into the supernatural. For me, hauntingly plausible stories generate more goosebumps than those horrifically improbable. (Perhaps because I grew up in a haunted house!)
While Come With Mehas less paranormal in its blend, the book’s recipe is chock-full of foreboding suspense, eerie folklore, amateur sleuthing, and contemporary issues. Aaron Decker’s wife is tragically killed in a mass shooting. After five years of marriage, he thinks he knew her. But then he finds her padlocked hope chest. Inside are files about unsolved murders, all women victims. Is a serial killer on the loose? And why or how was his wife involved? Aaron follows the trail she left behind. Goosebumps suggest he’s not alone. Or are they from the dark secrets he unveils? Aaron’s narration is authentic and close—so close that readers eavesdrop on him speaking directly to his dead wife. Incredibly raw. Come With Me is masterful at building atmospheric and emotional tension.
Aaron Decker's life changes one December morning when his wife Allison is killed. Haunted by her absence-and her ghost-Aaron goes through her belongings, where he finds a receipt for a motel room in another part of the country. Piloted by grief and an increasing sense of curiosity, Aaron embarks on a journey to discover what Allison had been doing in the weeks prior to her death.
Yet Aaron is unprepared to discover the dark secrets Allison kept, the death and horror that make up the tapestry of her hidden life. And with each dark secret revealed, Aaron becomes more and…
As one of 67 million Americans who serve as caretakers to their elderly parents, Susan Hartzler cared for her dad for three years, gaining profound insight into Parkinson's disease and the multifaceted challenges of caregiving. Throughout this period, Hartzler's rescue dog, Baldwin, a precious gift from her late mom, provided…
My first experience with historical fiction was reading The Witch from the Sea by that iconic author, Victoria Holt. This sparked a 40-year-long love affair with that genre that’s still burning intensely. I’ve been immersed in such fiction for a lifetime and have read the works of virtually every great author in this genre. I started my own series in 2020 because I feared this type of no-fluff fiction was becoming obsolete. There were 17th Century English characters making noise in my head so I used my creative writing background to bring them to life on the pages of my books, under the pen name Jessica Russell.
I was so tired of books that follow a formula with every author trying to imitate whoever had a bestseller that week when I picked this up. Nothing was what I expected! This was a totally character-driven book and so realistic with regard to how people actually behave and feel instead of contrived dialogue and predictable reactions. I could clearly visualize each and every person in this novel and the character development was superb. On top of that, the plot just didn’t quit! You will never believe the ending.
New York Times bestselling author Belva Plain goes to the heart of what it means to be a woman, a wife, and a friend, in her powerful new novel—a story of love and betrayal that measures the limits of loyalty, friendship, and forgiveness.
They met at school and have been inseparable ever since: Cecile, confident, elegant daughter of privilege; Norma, extraordinarily gifted and sadly troubled; and beautiful, ambitious Amanda, determined to rise above her humble southern beginnings. Two are married. One despairs of ever finding love. Three women. Leading their busy adult lives. Yet first and always: friends.
