100 books like Five Wives

By Joan Thomas,

Here are 100 books that Five Wives fans have personally recommended if you like Five Wives. Shepherd is a community of 11,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of The Vanishing Half

Heidi Reimer Author Of The Mother Act

From my list on immersing yourself in multiple perspectives.

Why am I passionate about this?

One of the things I love most about fiction is the way it allows you to “be” different people—to experience, think, feel, and behave from inside a particular temperament, worldview, or experience. My very favorite is adding the complexity of multiple perspectives to that magic trick so that you get to live inside two or more people who may be at complete odds with each other. Reading good fiction is an exercise in empathy, and reading good fiction from multiple viewpoints is empathy supercharged. I’ve loved that immersion since I was a little kid who believed there was nothing better than a novel.

Heidi's book list on immersing yourself in multiple perspectives

Heidi Reimer Why did Heidi love this book?

This novel is an immersive read with heaps of empathy for all its characters but especially for the two sisters whose perspectives are at the center of the story: the twin who disappears to live a secret life, passing as white, and the twin left behind.

We don’t get the perspective of Stella, the vanished twin, until 14 years after her disappearance, 150 pages into the book. By then, I was fully absorbed in the grief and unanswered questions of the people she’d abandoned, eager to finally know where she’d been all this time and to understand her complex motivations and the emotional and mental toll of relinquishing—and hiding—her racial identity, her community, her sister, and her past. I picked this book up and didn’t put it down until it was done.

By Brit Bennett,

Why should I read it?

10 authors picked The Vanishing Half as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

THE SUNDAY TIMES TOP BESTSELLER
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

SHORTLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE
LONGLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE

'An utterly mesmerising novel..I absolutely loved this book' Bernardine Evaristo, winner of the Booker Prize 2019

'Epic' Kiley Reid, O, The Oprah Magazine

'Favourite book [of the] year' Issa Rae

The Vignes twin sisters will always be identical. But after growing up together in a small, southern black community and running away at age sixteen, it's not just the shape of their daily lives that is different as adults, it's everything: their families, their communities, their racial identities. Ten years…


Book cover of Americanah

Elizabeth Shick Author Of The Golden Land

From my list on immersion into world history and culture.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up dreaming of other worlds, both real and imagined. I’ve since had the great fortune of living in Angola, Bangladesh, Gambia, Italy, Malawi, Mozambique, Myanmar, and Tanzania—each country as fascinating to me as the next. Yet there’s so much more of the world I want to experience! This is why I love novels that immerse me in the history and culture of foreign lands. By entering the hearts and minds of characters with different life experiences than myself, I feel a sense of connection that expands my own worldview. I hope you enjoy these books as much as I have!

Elizabeth's book list on immersion into world history and culture

Elizabeth Shick Why did Elizabeth love this book?

Exquisitely written and profoundly wise, this is one of my all-time favorite novels. Ifemulu and Obinze meet in high school, forming a deep attachment that continues into university. When political turmoil in Nigeria forces them to emigrate to separate countries, their love story comes to an unexpected halt.

As I read this book, I was moved by Ifemulu’s struggle to recapture her sense of self and stirred by the grief she felt, both for her broken relationship and for her country. Alternating between Nigeria and the USA, the novel transported me into Ifemulu’s world, making me reflect anew on questions of race, identity, and belonging. 

By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie,

Why should I read it?

8 authors picked Americanah as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Introducing the Collins Modern Classics, a series featuring some of the most significant books of recent times, books that shed light on the human experience - classics which will endure for generations to come.

How easy it was to lie to strangers, to create with strangers the versions of our lives we imagined.

Ifemelu and Obinze are young and in love when they depart military-ruled Nigeria. Self-assured Ifemelu heads for America. But quiet, thoughtful Obinze finds post-9/11 America closed to him, and plunges into a dangerous undocumented life in London.

Fifteen years later, they reunite in a newly democratic Nigeria,…


Book cover of Crossroads

Heidi Reimer Author Of The Mother Act

From my list on immersing yourself in multiple perspectives.

Why am I passionate about this?

One of the things I love most about fiction is the way it allows you to “be” different people—to experience, think, feel, and behave from inside a particular temperament, worldview, or experience. My very favorite is adding the complexity of multiple perspectives to that magic trick so that you get to live inside two or more people who may be at complete odds with each other. Reading good fiction is an exercise in empathy, and reading good fiction from multiple viewpoints is empathy supercharged. I’ve loved that immersion since I was a little kid who believed there was nothing better than a novel.

Heidi's book list on immersing yourself in multiple perspectives

Heidi Reimer Why did Heidi love this book?

Most of the family members in this novel—father, mother, and four teenage kids—are painfully at odds. Most of them don’t much like most of the others, but they also don’t have much understanding of one another’s inner worlds. As readers, we do—one character at a time, in multiplying layers of wounds, desires, and needs that grow into a complex picture of humanness.

I love it when a character who is underestimated or despised from the outside—which Marion, the frumpy, near-invisible wife and mother, certainly is—later becomes the point of view character, and we finally get to see who they really are, hear the secrets of their past, and grasp what has shaped them and why. By the end, Marion takes hold of her own agency and becomes the powerful heart of this novel, a redemption I loved for her. 

By Jonathan Franzen,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked Crossroads as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Jonathan Franzen’s gift for wedding depth and vividness of character with breadth of social vision has never been more dazzlingly evident than in Crossroads.

It’s December 23, 1971, and heavy weather is forecast for Chicago. Russ Hildebrandt, the associate pastor of a liberal suburban church, is on the brink of breaking free of a marriage he finds joyless—unless his wife, Marion, who has her own secret life, beats him to it. Their eldest child, Clem, is coming home from college on fire with moral absolutism, having taken an action that will shatter his father. Clem’s sister, Becky, long the social…


Book cover of Maine

Heidi Reimer Author Of The Mother Act

From my list on immersing yourself in multiple perspectives.

Why am I passionate about this?

One of the things I love most about fiction is the way it allows you to “be” different people—to experience, think, feel, and behave from inside a particular temperament, worldview, or experience. My very favorite is adding the complexity of multiple perspectives to that magic trick so that you get to live inside two or more people who may be at complete odds with each other. Reading good fiction is an exercise in empathy, and reading good fiction from multiple viewpoints is empathy supercharged. I’ve loved that immersion since I was a little kid who believed there was nothing better than a novel.

Heidi's book list on immersing yourself in multiple perspectives

Heidi Reimer Why did Heidi love this book?

Intergenerational conflict! Irreconcilable clashes of values! Decades of history, miscommunication, misunderstanding, secrets, resentments, shifting allegiances, expectations and their failure to be met!

These are my literary catnip, and they’re all here in this book, brought to life through four complex women: a grandmother, a daughter, a granddaughter, and a daughter-in-law, converging in a beach house one fraught summer. I especially love the way these women's lives illustrate the changes to what is possible and permissible for women between generations. 

By J. Courtney Sullivan,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Maine as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The celebrated author of Commencement and The Engagements introduces four unforgettable women and the abiding, often irrational love that keeps them coming back, every summer, to Maine and to each other.

"Rich and exhilarating ... You don't want the novel to end."—The New York Times Book Review
 
For the Kellehers, Maine is a place where children run in packs, showers are taken outdoors, and old Irish songs are sung around a piano. As three generations of Kelleher women arrive at the family's beach house, each brings her own hopes and fears. Maggie is thirty-two and…


Book cover of Hawaii

JD McKelvin Author Of These Cruel Watchers

From my list on exploring your inner darkness.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a child, I learned that I was able to lucid dream at will, speaking to the beings I met in these places I’d never seen before, and it always gave me a sense of interconnectedness. A thread that goes through all of us and our histories. I believe that the ancients dedicated so much of their energy and resources to preserving their stories in order to maintain this connection because it’s so important. Inside all of us is a darkness that, if left unchecked would lead us to ruin. These books all demonstrate the inner struggle we have to understand and redirect that darkness toward the light and the good. 

JD's book list on exploring your inner darkness

JD McKelvin Why did JD love this book?

This book explores the customs and development of the Polynesian Islands prior to interference from European powers.

I see the rawest forms of our instincts and psychology in the indigenous peoples of the world. This book is a call for all readers to suspend the tendency to judge other cultures and time periods and just be observers. 

By James A. Michener,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Hawaii as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Pulitzer Prize–winning author James A. Michener brings Hawaii’s epic history vividly to life in a classic saga that has captivated readers since its initial publication in 1959. As the volcanic Hawaiian Islands sprout from the ocean floor, the land remains untouched for centuries—until, little more than a thousand years ago, Polynesian seafarers make the perilous journey across the Pacific, flourishing in this tropical paradise according to their ancient traditions. Then, in the early nineteenth century, American missionaries arrive, bringing with them a new creed and a new way of life. Based on exhaustive research and told in Michener’s immersive prose,…


Book cover of These Strange Ashes: Is God Still in Charge?

Jamie Janosz Author Of When Others Shuddered: Eight Women Who Refused to Give Up

From my list on gutsy, godly women.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grew up attending a little Baptist church where we would host traveling missionaries. I remember one young woman in particular, Jane Vandenberg, who would open her bag to show us mementos from her life in Africa. As I listened to her stories, I admired how brave she was. I wanted to be like that! I served for 16 years as an English professor at Moody Bible Institute where I would share well-written and inspirational books with my students. And, as a Christian woman and mom, I think we need more role models for ourselves and for our daughters. Sharing the powerful biographies of Christian women is one way to make that happen!

Jamie's book list on gutsy, godly women

Jamie Janosz Why did Jamie love this book?

This is the best missionary autobiography I have ever read.

In These Strange Ashes Elisabeth Elliot is so brutally honest about being a missionary. She complains about humidity and wrinkled clothes. She endures loneliness and times of deep discouragement in the jungles of Ecuador. And the ending! I won’t spoil it.

While I’ve read other books by Elliot, including her famous memoir about losing her husband Jim, this one stayed with me. It asks, why do we serve God? What happens when the result is not stellar? Does it mean we failed? I wasn’t eager to sign up for a trip to the jungle after reading her story, but it helped me see my life from a new perspective.

By Elisabeth Elliot,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked These Strange Ashes as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In her first year as a missionary to a small group of native women in the Ecuadorian jungle, Elisabeth Elliot faced physical and spiritual trials. In These Strange Ashes, Elliot captures the mysteries and stark realities surrounding the colorful and primitive world in which she ministered. More than just a recounting of her early days, this is a beautifully crafted and deeply personal reflection on the important questions of life and a remarkable testimony to an authentic Christian commitment.


Book cover of God's Smuggler

Anna M. Aquino Author Of An Ember In Time

From my list on Christian history so amazing they sound fictional.

Why am I passionate about this?

I'm a huge self-proclaimed history dork. I love reading real stories of how God uses the ones that no one would expect in extraordinary ways. I love hearing how God turns horrible situations around. Even in my own manuscripts, from a historical fiction perspective, I love to immerse it in such truth that you think, “That couldn’t really happen... Could it?” I have an ongoing phrase in ministry and life that you need to take “The poo you walk through and let God turn it into fertilizer.” These book recommendations definitely do that. Bad things do happen. They don’t come from God but through Him we can overcome them.

Anna's book list on Christian history so amazing they sound fictional

Anna M. Aquino Why did Anna love this book?

Brother Andrew’s story is astounding. He was probably one of the least likely candidates to be used by God in such a way, but God always picks those the world would not. The founder of Open Doors Ministries, Brother Andrew’s adventures will leave you in awe of what a life well lived for the gospel can do. It encouraged me to stand for what the Lord says in spite of circumstance. It reminded me of the Biblical truth that God always makes a way, and inspired me to continue to blaze the trail God has for me.

By Brother Andrew,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked God's Smuggler as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 9, 10, 11, and 12.

What is this book about?

A True-Life Thriller That Will Leave
You Breathless!

In the anniversary edition of this electrifying real-life story, readers are gripped from the first page by the harrowing account of a young man who risked his life to smuggle Bibles through the borders of closed nations. Now, sixty years after Brother Andrew first prayed for God's miracle protection, this expanded edition of a classic work encourages new readers to meet this remarkable man and his mission for the first time.

Working undercover for God, a mission that continues to this day, has made Brother Andrew one of the all-time heroes of…


Book cover of To the Golden Shore: The Life of Adoniram Judson

Shandi Stevenson Author Of Worldchangers

From my list on Christian biographies to meet lifelong friends.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have always been a voracious reader and was blessed with parents who filled my home with books, who read to me, and who exposed me to both true and fictional stories that expanded my heart and nourished my imagination. I grew up on Christian biographies, along with devouring history and novels. I was shaped, nourished, and strengthened by the stories of real men and women who lived lives that mattered, and who understood that God never puts His children in times, in places, or in circumstances where He cannot enable them to shine brightly, and where they cannot speak truth and compassion into the darkness.

Shandi's book list on Christian biographies to meet lifelong friends

Shandi Stevenson Why did Shandi love this book?

The story of a brilliant, driven young scholar who seeks both to rebel against and to please his demanding father, of a leading intellectual skeptic who becomes a Christian, and of a missionary who faces unimaginable adventure, hardship, and triumph in the mysterious country of Burma (modern Myanmar) is an unforgettable tale of tragedy, loss, heartbreak, faith, and victory, complete with the interwoven stories of the three very different but equally extraordinary women who would share Adoniram Judson’s life.

Meeting four such remarkable people in the pages of one book is an extraordinary experience, and seeing God at work through some of the darkest events of history to seek out a people for Himself will give you hope for the darkest days. 

By Courtney Anderson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked To the Golden Shore as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

On February 12, 1812, Ann and Adoniram Judson sailed from Salem aboard the brig Caravan as two of the first missionaries to go out from North America. Watching the shoreline disappear from view, they could not have foreseen the impact of their journey on the future of the Christian world mission or on the thousands of men and women who would follow in their footsteps. After a short stay in India, they carried the Good News of Jesus Christ to the golden shore of Burma.

Drawing on letters and church records, Courtney Anderson paints a poignant portrait of Judson’s early…


Book cover of The Poisonwood Bible

Timothy B. Barner Author Of Eyes of God

From my list on mind-expanding, original literature.

Why am I passionate about this?

I grow bored reading the same thing over and over, so I don’t. My favorite books challenge me, teach me, blow the walls out, and expand my horizons. I want books to take me to unexpected places and show me worlds existing and otherwise that I never dreamed could be out there. I’ve never been a fan of genre literature that strictly “follows the rules” for that reason. Some of the books on this list are from genres, but they still differ from the predictable. I want to be surprised, and then you’ll hold my attention for the entire novel, and I’ll refer back to it for years.

Timothy's book list on mind-expanding, original literature

Timothy B. Barner Why did Timothy love this book?

Barbara Kingsolver’s magnum opus follows a Georgia missionary family’s self-destruction in the dark jungles of the Belgian Congo. The story is narrated by the mother and four daughters as the father, Nathan Price, leads his family to a remote village where they live squalid lives.

In a series of misadventures, he is resolute and foolish, attempting to lead the natives to Christ. Through poverty, culture clashes, and even death, the American women learn to depend on the villagers as Nathan blindly attempts to shove them into an Americanized form of Christianity. Kingsolver’s epic is an engrossing study of how destructive blind, stubborn, prejudiced faith can become. It is, at times, heartbreaking and painfully realistic. 

Kingsolver is not afraid to question Christians' motives and show the dark side of Christianity. Yet, she is also respectful of the faith and especially respectful of the African villagers. After reading this story, I found…

By Barbara Kingsolver,

Why should I read it?

19 authors picked The Poisonwood Bible as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

**NOW INCLUDING THE FIRST CHAPTER OF DEMON COPPERHEAD: THE NEW BARBARA KINGSOLVER NOVEL**

**DEMON COPPERHEAD IS AVAILABLE NOW FOR PRE-ORDER**

An international bestseller and a modern classic, this suspenseful epic of one family's tragic undoing and their remarkable reconstruction has been read, adored and shared by millions around the world.

'Breathtaking.' Sunday Times
'Exquisite.' The Times
'Beautiful.' Independent
'Powerful.' New York Times

This story is told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959.

They carry with them everything they believe they will…


Book cover of The Book of Strange New Things

Sam Taylor Author Of The Two Loves of Sophie Strom

From my list on making the impossible feel real.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always loved stories that rearrange reality in some simple, allusive way, including movies like Groundhog Day or The Truman Show. They remind me of a quote about Italo Calvino that I first read when I was a teenager and have loved ever since: ‘He holds a mirror up to life, then writes about the mirror.’ I tend not to be attracted to stories that simply depict reality and even less so to stories that completely abandon reality for an invented fantasy world. All my favorite fictions take place somewhere in between, in the blending of the real and the impossible. 

Sam's book list on making the impossible feel real

Sam Taylor Why did Sam love this book?

Part of what I love about this novel is that its basic premise–an English pastor is sent to a distant planet to preach the Christian gospel to aliens–sounds so absurd that it’s hard to imagine it feeling real. But Faber does a wonderful job of taking the glamor out of space travel and foreign worlds.

The atmosphere of this novel is all empty cafeterias and unpleasant humidity–I love the banality of it all! In its portrait of a loving but strained marriage (with the husband getting excited over aliens and the wife struggling to hold it together on a dying Earth), the novel is dryly funny while also being genuinely moving.

By Michel Faber,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked The Book of Strange New Things as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'I am with you always, even unto the end of the world . . .'

Peter Leigh is a missionary called to go on the journey of a lifetime. Leaving behind his beloved wife, Bea, he boards a flight for a remote and unfamiliar land, a place where the locals are hungry for the teachings of the Bible - his 'book of strange new things'. It is a quest that will challenge Peter's beliefs, his understanding of the limits of the human body and, most of all, his love for Bea.

The Book of Strange New Things is a wildly…


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