Fans pick 100 books like Money and Marriage

Mills’ description of the sociological imagination has become central to the way I think.

He writes of the importance of linking personal troubles to social issues, of moving from the deeply personal to the impersonal, and of linking biography and history.

The sociological imagination is at the heart of my research on domestic economic abuse. It links the stories of personal devastation to the global social issue of family violence. The personal gets transformed to policy and legal issues of the criminalisation of coercive control.  

Viviana Zelizer opened the world of money and relationships for me. I read her when I was doing my doctoral thesis on money, banking, and Anglo-Celtic consumers in Australia. 

Her basic tenet is that money is a social phenomenon. Money shapes and is shaped by social relationships and cultural values. Viviana’s work helped transform my thesis about banking to that of money and marriage.

It was my first step to becoming a sociologist of money and discovering how researching money opens the whole field of human relationships. 

Evan Stark’s book introduced me to the concept of  ‘coercive control’.

It is a continued and malevolent pattern of domination and entrapment that makes family violence a human rights crime. He also noted that the perpetrator, often a man, uses gendered stereotypes to control the woman, to convince her that it is she who is at fault.

Evan Stark’s insights helped me connect the gendered cultural practices of money with family violence. When these cultural ways of dealing with money were used for entrapment and abuse, money as a medium of care became a medium of coercive control.

Nicola Sharp-Jeff’s book makes a great contribution by linking research on economic abuse to policy and practice.

She has been able to use her research to set up an important organisation, Surviving Economic Abuse, to help raise awareness of economic abuse, influence law and policy and work with industry and government to address and prevent family violence.

I recognise the book’s value because I know how difficult it is to draw on research to suggest ways forward for policymakers and industry. This is a necessary step for all researchers if they want to prevent family violence and empower women.    

This book – a copy is free at hathitrust.org – shows how some truths about money are eternal. 

It is the first personal finance guide written for women but its advice is still valid – ‘high interest is another name for bad security’ ‘Do not put all your money into one concern’ ‘the Broker [you employ] should be of high standing and respectability’ ‘place the money…in the bank at interest [or] put it into the Funds’. And it is a model of clear writing. I loved it.

This was probably the most easily digestible book on investing that I’ve ever read. To me, the most difficult part of investing is simply getting over the fear of doing it, and Morgan Housel gives genuine motivation for overcoming that fear.

The chapters are purposefully short, which allowed me to absorb the main takeaways without getting too in the weeds on details (a necessary downside of a lot of nonfiction). I loved that it included very clear examples of how our brains work against us when it comes to our finances, as well as clear advice on how to counteract that.

Yanely’s book is a must-read no matter where you are in your financial journey. She’s engaging throughout the entire book, whether she is sharing an anecdote or a savings strategy. She is a great storyteller and uses her personal experiences to inspire others to make better choices and be financially free.

This easy-to-read book is full of practical information that can be understood by teens and young adults, as well as older consumers who are searching for ways to get ahead financially. She’s practical with her advice and empowering with her knowledge, and she makes you believe your financial goals are achievable with patience and planning.

This is one book that will help people get their finances back on track.

There is a concept called the Barefoot Steps, and the idea of having an emergency savings account (mojo) is not only necessary; yet the author makes it inspiring to get this organised in the process of setting up your buckets. Strategies on eliminating debt are also covered. 

This book is a perfect and powerful guide for anyone struggling with money in their lives, or with bringing into physical reality what they dream to.

In my courses and training programs and in coaching thousands of folks around the world, I’ve taught a number of concepts from this book, including the author’s assertion: “People are happiest when demonstrating in physical reality what they know to be true about themselves, giving form to their Life Intentions in ways that are of service to others.”

In my view, no truer words have been spoken and when breaking this idea down, we’re guided to understand the importance of: 1) Recognizing more clearly what we know about ourselves, deep down, 2) dimensionalizing our Life Intentions and legacy we want to leave behind and acting on that, and 3) identifying new ways we want to help and support others.

These three activities have been… show more.

This is an entirely different kind of book to those listed above. From 1990 to 1996 Amy Dacyczyn, a self-styled "frugal zealot," put out a monthly newsletter, The Tightwad Gazette. It contained all sorts of tips, tricks, strategies, and advice on how to pinch pennies. This book brings all her articles together in a single volume. For anyone committed to living simply–which usually means living cheaply–it is a goldmine. True, not all her recommendations met with my family's approval: mixing real maple syrup 50-50 with fake maple syrup received multiple thumbs down. But browsing through it is great fun, and on almost any page you'll find a salutary reminder of how you could be more frugal. And as we all know, frugality is associated with wisdom and with happiness.