100 books like Love and Respect

By Emerson Eggerichs,

Here are 100 books that Love and Respect fans have personally recommended if you like Love and Respect. 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 Meaning of Marriage: Facing the Complexities of Commitment with the Wisdom of God

Brittany Coburn Author Of Pray Together: A 6 Week Couples Prayer Guide

From my list on how to build a strong Christian relationship.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a Christian author who loves to see when relationships, rooted in Christ, succeed. I have been married for 13 years and during that time we have had ups and downs and have found that our relationship would have never succeeded if it wasn’t for Christ and being grounded in his truths. I have sought out ways to cultivate healthy a marriage and often find myself studying and reading on how to best have our relationship reflect Christ and his love for the church. 

Brittany's book list on how to build a strong Christian relationship

Brittany Coburn Why did Brittany love this book?

The Meaning of Marriage was released shortly after my husband and I got married.

As newlyweds, it shaped how we viewed our marriage from a Christian perspective. It helped us to put Christ at the center and love each other as Christ loved the church. As many also experience, the first years of marriage contained many challenges.

Reading The Meaning of Marriage helped us to walk through difficult without losing our focus on why we were married in the first place. 

By Timothy Keller, Kathy Keller,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

"Incredibly rich with wisdom and insight that will leave the reader, whether single or married, feeling uplifted." -The Washington Times

Based on the acclaimed sermon series by New York Times bestselling author Timothy Keller, this book shows everyone-Christians, skeptics, singles, longtime married couples, and those about to be engaged-the vision of what marriage should be according to the Bible.

Modern culture would have you believe that everyone has a soul mate; that romance is the most important part of a successful marriage; that your spouse is there to help you realize your potential; that marriage does not mean forever, but…


Book cover of Divine Design: God's Complementary Roles for Men and Women

Scott LaPierre Author Of Your Marriage God's Way: A Biblical Guide to a Christ-Centered Relationship

From my list on Christian marriage (from the author of a best-selling Christian marriage book).

Why am I passionate about this?

I am the teaching pastor of Woodland Christian Church, and in 2016, I published a best-selling marriage book, Your Marriage God's Way, with an accompanying workbook. Soon after that, I began receiving invitations to put on marriage conferences across the nation. My experience teaching on marriage, performing marriage counseling, and meeting so many married couples has given me a strong biblical understanding of marriage.

Scott's book list on Christian marriage (from the author of a best-selling Christian marriage book)

Scott LaPierre Why did Scott love this book?

I have been a big fan of John MacArthur for years. His commentary, which I recommended in another one of my lists, is the first commentary I look at when preparing sermons.

Generally, when I want to listen to a sermon on the passage I am preparing to teach, I usually try to find one of his sermons first. Not surprisingly, his marriage book found a place on my list. Just like the other books in the list, he holds a complementarian view of marriage, which is to say he believes the Bible teaches that men and women are equal, but not identical. This is God’s “Divine Design.”

By John F. MacArthur,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

For decades culture has blurred the lines between men and women, all in the name of equality. Yet instead of creating harmony, this approach has caused frustration and confusion, leaving families broken and hurting. Divine Design draws reader back to God’s intention for men and women, and tackles big issues such as authority in marriage, mothers in the home, and the innate differences between males and females. Readers will discover how embracing their unique design can foster security, balance, and love in a marriage and family.

 

 


Book cover of Sacred Marriage: What If God Designed Marriage to Make Us Holy More Than to Make Us Happy?

Scott LaPierre Author Of Your Marriage God's Way: A Biblical Guide to a Christ-Centered Relationship

From my list on Christian marriage (from the author of a best-selling Christian marriage book).

Why am I passionate about this?

I am the teaching pastor of Woodland Christian Church, and in 2016, I published a best-selling marriage book, Your Marriage God's Way, with an accompanying workbook. Soon after that, I began receiving invitations to put on marriage conferences across the nation. My experience teaching on marriage, performing marriage counseling, and meeting so many married couples has given me a strong biblical understanding of marriage.

Scott's book list on Christian marriage (from the author of a best-selling Christian marriage book)

Scott LaPierre Why did Scott love this book?

The subtitle of the book helps you understand Gary Thomas’s purpose: he wants to help his readers see that marriage is not primarily for our happiness.

Although it is a gift and frequently fills us with joy, marriage is also very sanctifying, which is to say it makes us holy. Few things in life help us grow spiritually as much as marriage. When we get married we learn to be patient, gentle, and we frequently have to find ourselves being forgiving. And these are all wonderful graces.

By Gary Thomas,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

What if God designed marriage to make you holy instead of happy? What if your relationship isn't as much about you and your spouse as it is about you and God?

In Sacred Marriage, bestselling author Gary Thomas uncovers the ways that your marriage can become a doorway to a closer walk with God and with each other. Join over one million others who have already uncovered Thomas's tips for fostering a sacred marriage.

Within the pages of Sacred Marriage, Thomas invites you to see how God can use your relationship with your spouse as a discipline and a motivation…


Book cover of What Did You Expect?: Redeeming The Realities Of Marriage

Scott LaPierre Author Of Your Marriage God's Way: A Biblical Guide to a Christ-Centered Relationship

From my list on Christian marriage (from the author of a best-selling Christian marriage book).

Why am I passionate about this?

I am the teaching pastor of Woodland Christian Church, and in 2016, I published a best-selling marriage book, Your Marriage God's Way, with an accompanying workbook. Soon after that, I began receiving invitations to put on marriage conferences across the nation. My experience teaching on marriage, performing marriage counseling, and meeting so many married couples has given me a strong biblical understanding of marriage.

Scott's book list on Christian marriage (from the author of a best-selling Christian marriage book)

Scott LaPierre Why did Scott love this book?

My wife and I have been fans of Paul David Tripp for years. We have listened to many of his sermons, conference messages, and read his books on parenting.

I am currently listening to one of his books on pastoring. Years ago, our church put on a marriage conference using his conference material on What Did You Expect?. We purchased numerous copies of the book for couples in our church and still make it available.

The book approaches marriage with the foundational points that it consists of two sinful, selfish people. With that understanding there can be growth and sanctification.

By Paul David Tripp,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked What Did You Expect? as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

More couples than I can number have been surprised that their marriage needs the regular rescue of grace. And because they did not take their Bible seriously they were caught short in that moment when the rubber meets the road in daily live, where grace was their only hope...
'So when you are sinned against or when the fallen world breaks your door down, don't lash out or run away. Stand in all your weakness and confusion and say, 'I am not alone. God is with me, and he is faithful, powerful and willing.' You can be realistic and hopeful…


Book cover of The Paris Wife

Patti Callahan Henry Author Of The Secret Book of Flora Lea

From my list on transporting you to another land.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m an author because I was a reader who loved to be transported to a world and land outside my own. My favorite books are the ones that introduce me to a place and time I’ve never been, an immersive read that brings me somewhere new. I believe in the power of story and the magic of its transport. Come along with me and discover a few books that do this very thing. 

Patti's book list on transporting you to another land

Patti Callahan Henry Why did Patti love this book?

I’ve only been to Paris one time, but I feel as if I’ve been many times because I toured this city with Paula McLain and the story of Hadley Hemingway, Ernest’s first and most beloved wife. From the cafes to the cobbled streets to the parlors and apartments, I was engrossed. 

This is the wild story of Ernest Hemingway’s first wife. Hadley was a quiet twenty-eight-year-old woman who had given up on love until she met Ernest. Their whirlwind romance was ill-prepared for the fast living of Jazz Age Paris. It is a beautiful portrayal of love and loyalty, of art and heartbreak. 

By Paula McLain,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked The Paris Wife as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A deeply evocative novel of ambition and betrayal that captures the love affair between two unforgettable people, Ernest Hemingway and his wife Hadley—from the author of Love and Ruin and When the Stars Go Dark
 
“A beautiful portrait of being in Paris in the glittering 1920s—as a wife and as one’s own woman.”—Entertainment Weekly

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY People • Chicago Tribune • NPR • The Philadelphia Inquirer • Kirkus Reviews • The Toronto Sun • BookPage

Chicago, 1920: Hadley Richardson is a quiet twenty-eight-year-old who has all but…


Book cover of Véra: Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov

Megan Marshall Author Of Margaret Fuller: A New American Life

From my list on women’s writing on women’s lives.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am the grown-up little girl who loved to read. I loved novels and children’s biographies—Amelia Earhart, Marie Curie, Annie Oakley. I imagined that if I could learn to write books that inspired readers and moved them to tears like my favorite books, I would have accomplished a great good. My first biography, The Peabody Sisters, took twenty years and won awards for historical writing. My second biography, Margaret Fuller, won the Pulitzer. But what matters more than all the prizes is when people tell me they cried at the end of my books. I hope you, too, will read them and weep over lives lived fully and well.    

Megan's book list on women’s writing on women’s lives

Megan Marshall Why did Megan love this book?

Stacy Schiff is a master biographer. Any subject she chooses (Cleopatra, Benjamin Franklin, Antoine de St. Exupéry, the accused witches of Salem) is elevated by the passion and persistence she brings to research and writing. Her Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Véra Nabokov, the wife of Vladimir, is another pioneering work that proves you don’t have to be at center stage to be worthy of a book. What did Véra do for Vladimir, and he for her? This is no take-down, not the kind of exposé that reveals the great man’s wife as the true genius, exploited and forgotten. It’s a love story of equals, two against (and for) the world.

By Stacy Schiff,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR BIOGRAPHY • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the award–winning author of The Revolutionary and The Witches comes “an elegantly nuanced portrait of [Vladimir Nabokov’s] wife, showing us just how pivotal Nabokov’s marriage was to his hermetic existence and how it indelibly shaped his work.”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
 
ONE OF ESQUIRE’S 50 BEST BIOGRAPHIES OF ALL TIME

“Monumental.”—The Boston Globe
“Utterly romantic.”—New York magazine
“Deeply moving.”—The Seattle Times

Stacy Schiff brings to shimmering life one of the greatest literary love stories of our time: Vladimir Nabokov, émigré author of Lolita; Pale Fire;…


Book cover of Lives of the Wives: Five Literary Marriages

Joel Cabrita Author Of Written Out: The Silencing of Regina Gelana Twala

From my list on literary women you’ve never heard of.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a historian of Southern Africa who is fascinated by questions of visibility and invisibility. I love probing beneath the surface of the past. For example, why is this person famous and renowned, but that person isn’t? To me, recognition and reputation are interesting to scrutinize as social categories in their own right, rather than as factual statements. I’ve written two books focusing on the history of religious expression in Southern Africa, and my most recent book is a biography of the forgotten South African writer and politician Regina Gelana Twala. 

Joel's book list on literary women you’ve never heard of

Joel Cabrita Why did Joel love this book?

I love the way in which this fascinating group biography of the female partners of renowned male writers brings these usually ignored figures into the limelight.

Ciuraru argues that behind the careers of many acclaimed literary figures stand the important contributions of their wives. These women offered intellectual as well as practical support. 

Many of these literary wives shelved their own creative aspirations to tend to the careers of their husbands.

But after their husbands’ deaths, some of these women found they finally had space for their own literary lives to start blossoming. 

By Carmela Ciuraru,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

"The five marriages that Carmela Ciuraru explores in Lives of the Wives provide such delightfully gossipy pleasure that we have to remind ourselves that these were real people whose often stormy relationships must surely have been less fun to experience than they are for us to read about."-Francine Prose, author of The Vixen

A witty, provocative look inside the tumultuous marriages of five writers, illuminating the creative process as well as the role of money, power, and fame in these complex and fascinating relationships.

"With an ego the size of a small nation, the literary lion is powerful on the…


Book cover of What Happens at Night

Peter Gadol Author Of The Stranger Game

From my list on invented places that haunt us into thinking about the world.

Why am I passionate about this?

As much as I enjoy traveling to real places in fiction, I find that authors who ask me to inhabit a world of their own making make me think more deeply, and these are also the novels I dream about when I’m not actually reading them, the pages I cannot wait to return to when I can pick up the book again. By exiting the world we inhabit, and occupying a world very much like our own, I end up reflecting more thoughtfully about the contemporary moment, and in a way, feel more connected. I tried to create such a world in The Stranger Game, and this is something I hope to do again in a future novel.

Peter's book list on invented places that haunt us into thinking about the world

Peter Gadol Why did Peter love this book?

Anyone who reads one Peter Cameron book will read them all. In his latest novel, a married couple ends up at a grand hotel in a strange European country of fading glory, amid guests who are both eccentric and troubling. At times it’s hard to know whether what is happening is really happening; at times it’s all too acid and real. I hesitate to call this book a comedy, because it’s unsettling. But it’s also magical and memorable, and you won’t want to check out and depart its pages.

By Peter Cameron,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked What Happens at Night as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A couple find themselves at a fading, grand European hotel full of eccentric and sometimes unsettling patrons in this "faultlessly elegant and quietly menacing" allegorical story that examines the significance of shifting desires and the uncertainty of reality (Garth Greenwell, author of Cleanness).

An unnamed American couple travels to a strange, snowy European city to adopt a baby. It’s a difficult journey that leaves the wife, who is struggling with cancer, desperately weak, and her husband worries that her illness will prevent the orphanage from releasing their child.

On arrival, the couple checks into the cavernous and eerily deserted Borgarfjaroasysla…


Book cover of A Happy Marriage

Joanne Serling Author Of Good Neighbors

From my list on the truth about love and marriage.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a novelist, essayist, and short story writer who finds domestic life as fascinating and complex as any board room battle or historical event. I love books about marriage and family because so few people are willing to talk honestly about them. Finding a great book is like meeting a new friend who is willing to tell you their secrets and then share hard-won advice. 

Joanne's book list on the truth about love and marriage

Joanne Serling Why did Joanne love this book?

It’s been nearly ten years since I first read this book and I can still remember what the characters were wearing in the first chapter. Now that’s visceral storytelling! The author’s ability to capture his intense obsession with his future wife is familiar, poignant, and heart-warming. Yglesias’ portrayal of the couple’s long and, at times, bumpy marriage, makes this one of the most complex and honest portrayals of a marriage that I have ever read. That this is also a book about cancer and death does nothing to diminish the feelings of hope and gratitude embodied on every page. 

By Rafael Yglesias,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

A Happy Marriage is both intimate and expansive: It is the story of Enrique Sabas and his wife, Margaret, a novel that alternates between the romantic misadventures of the first weeks of their courtship and the final months of Margaret's life as she says good-bye to her family, friends, and children -- and to Enrique. Spanning thirty years, this achingly honest story is about what it means for two people to spend a lifetime together -- and what makes a happy marriage.

Yglesias's career as a novelist began in 1970 when he wrote an autobiographical novel at sixteen, hailed by…


Book cover of Behind Closed Doors

Christine EM Cooper Author Of His Lies, Her Secrets

From my list on get lost in someone else’s drama.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have enjoyed writing and creating stories based on fictional characters since my writing assignments in elementary school. I can remember my teachers telling my mother that my stories were very captivating and that I would take my simple assignments to a level that they hadn’t expected. This love for writing led to a love for reading fiction books and a deeper love for urban fiction, women’s fiction, and erotic fiction. I enjoyed books so much that I became a bookseller at a local bookstore and moved up to a specialist who introduced customers to their next favorite book. 

Christine's book list on get lost in someone else’s drama

Christine EM Cooper Why did Christine love this book?

This is one of those books that you never want to end. I was hooked from the very beginning when I was introduced to Regina and Larry. They had what outsiders would call the perfect marriage until Larry started getting his needs satisfied elsewhere.

I loved how Regina ultimately pulled herself together, took control of her life, and accepted her new normal. I thought the author’s way of describing Regina’s best friend Karen’s character and her husband John was one that left no room for confusion regarding their struggles of dealing with addiction and the demands of a spouse who just wasn't having it.

I finished this book in record-breaking time because it left me wanting more each time I closed it. My bookmark never stayed tucked in the creases of this book for too long! 

By Kimberla Lawson Roby,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Regina Moore and Karen Jackson, lifelong best friends, are living the kind of life most women only fantasize about. With beautiful homes, fulfilling careers, and two adoring husbands, their joy could not be greater, their worlds could not be richer. But suddenly, shattering truths about the loving men they thought they knew turn happiness into anguish and rage. For Karen and Regina, nothing they believed in or cherished can ever be the same as it was.

Yet, in the painful process of starting over, new doors will open, and two women who once had it all will rediscover the power…


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