The most recommended books about love

Back in 1977 the experiences and concerns of police families were invisible. Police officers were regarded as super-humans, unaffected by their day-to-day exposure to tragedy, cruelty, and stress. In my counseling job, I heard very different stories from their spouses. Ever since, it has been my mission to support police families and find ways to keep the job from damaging family life. It has taken more than two decades, but I am pleased and proud to say police families are no longer invisible. The books I picked are proof that the family behind the badge matters as much as the person wearing it.

I’m a survivor of childhood and domestic violence who grew up and still lives in South Africa. We don’t talk about abuse much, but it's everywhere. It’s a beautiful place to live, and a hard and heartbreaking place, as well. I wanted to write my books to make sense of my experiences, then also to extend hope and possibility to others dealing with similar things. I admire hard-headed female characters who are making their way on their own terms, and I'm a believer in the power of love. I hope that readers will see themselves in Iris, and even though they might want to shake her at times, they’ll cheer for her through it all!

I am the co-author and CEO of The Wonder Weeks. I advise various global players in the field of babies and I'm a sought-after speaker at fairs and in daily exchange with mothers and fathers. With all this knowledge I know the needs of parents and their children like no other, with my books and apps I stand for power to the parents! 

There’s nothing better than sitting down at the pool to read a fun, engaging story that transports you into another world and keeps you entertained. I’ve always loved reading to escape, and when I started writing and posting my stories for free online at 17 years old, I discovered my true calling. My first story amassed 140 million reads with millions of comments, where people shared how much fun they had reading the story and how it helped them escape from their lives. Since then, I’ve continued writing stories I’m passionate about and sharing them with people who love a good, fun, romance.

Sometimes I wonder how I ended up writing so many books about spirituality and religion. I started out in journalism, after all, driven by an endless curiosity about people and the planet. I wanted to tell all the untold stories! Funny thing, chasing those stories deeper and deeper eventually led me to write about spirituality, and ultimately, prayer. I picked up an MA in pastoral ministry, spent a few years editing high school religion textbooks for Saint Mary’s Press, and then started writing my own books. Most of what I write is aimed at helping beginners learn to pray, which is why I made this list.

As someone who grew up in Australia without any gay literary characters to relate to, I’m incredibly passionate about queer stories set in our beautiful country. We now have a wealth of brilliant books by LGBTQ+ authors, and I hope that by sharing my recommendations, our stories find even more of the readers they’re meant to find. I’ve focused on books featuring gay male protagonists, as that’s how I identify, and they’re the type of queer stories I relate to the most. Some of the books are fiction, others are memoir, some are written for teens and others are for adults, but all of them share an incredible level of authenticity.

As a human, I struggle with staying connected during conflict. Because conflict naturally shows up in all relationships, I had to figure out how to do it better, or die alone! My path has woven through studying conflict resolution, becoming a relationship therapist, doing deep learning within my own life partnership, and exploring the realm of somatic psychology in my doctoral work. I long for a world where we have the skills we need to work through conflict without resorting to violence. In my dreams, the world is able to coexist with love and conflict. Our relationships thrive when we speak our full truth, and embody our values in action.

I’ve been writing fantasy since I was a very young child. My need to escape a world that I viewed with fear was satiated by writing worlds that gave me control over how I could create and master them. I would read books that I adored but wanted to implement changes to better fit my own personal feelings and perception. For example, unicorns were terrifying creatures in my head, so I gave them fire-covered horns and eyes of flames. Nothing in the world felt pure or safe to me, so I write in a way that gives a dark twist to any and all mythological creatures and magical realms.

I love books that entertain and uplift when characters learn and overcome. As a teenager, things happened that threw me into a painful tailspin, ending in a wilderness program for troubled kids. It taught me that I can do hard things and face challenges in life. I’ve lost loved ones, have a special needs child, divorced, been broke, earned my black belt, returned to school as a single mom for a degree, and co-founded a nonprofit to support literacy for kids. None of that was easy, but it increased my compassion and hope. Stories can be powerful reminders of human resilience, and that battle scars make someone more beautiful than before.

After years of struggling to start my own business, I had a revelation that changed everything for me. The best marketers weren’t marketers—they were resourceful punks, propagandists, cult leaders, and other assorted riff-raff. I began to adopt their tactics, and I started having some success—first as a freelance copywriter and then as a marketing agency owner. Ever since, I’ve been obsessed by the weird psychology we fall into when we’re with other humans and how people can hack that psychology to make others do what they want.