100 Best Adultery Books of All Time (Updated for 2026)

1

Anna Karenina

Leo Tolstoy

5.0

Tolstoy's epic novel of love, destiny and self-destruction, in a gorgeous new clothbound edition from Penguin Classics. Anna Karenina seems to have everything - beauty, wealth, popularity and an adored son. But she feels that her life is empty until the moment she encounters the impetuous officer Count Vronsky. Their subsequent affair scandalizes society and family alike and soon brings jealously

Recommended by Chelsea Handler, Marvin Liao, Audrey Russo, and 5 others.

Chelsea Handler

I don't know if I have to expound on why I love this book, but everyone should read this author, and this was the first one of his works I read. So, it's like a first boyfriend. Or my first Cabbage Patch Kid. [source]

Marvin Liao

Partner/500 Startups

My list would be (besides the ones I mentioned in answer to the previous question) both business & Fiction/Sci-Fi and ones I personally found helpful to myself. The business books explain just exactly how business, work & investing are in reality & how to think properly & differentiate yourself. On the non-business side, a mix of History & classic fiction to understand people, philosophy to make sense of life and Science fiction to picture what the future could be like (not always utopian). [source]

Audrey Russo

Question: What books would you recommend to young people interested in your career path? Answer: Anything by Peter Senge. The Hard Thing About Hard Things – Ben Horowitz Once you are Lucky, Twice you are good – Sara Lacey Revolutionary Wealth – Alvin Toffler Black Swan – Taleb Reset: My Fight for Inclusion and Lasting Change, by Ellen Pao. Creative Class – Richard Florida Creativity Inc. by Ed Catmull & Amy Wallace Liar’s Poker by Michael Lewis American Government 101: From the Continental Congress to the Iowa Caucus, Everything You Need to Know About US Politics – Kathleen Spears The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. Any book by Herman Hesse The Art of War by Sun Tzu. [source]

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2

The Girl on the Train

Paula Hawkins

5.0

An alternative cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.

Rachel catches the same commuter train every morning. She knows it will wait at the same signal each time, overlooking a row of back gardens. She’s even started to feel like she knows the people who live in one of the houses. “Jess and Jason,” she calls them. Their life—as she sees it—is perfect. If only Rachel could be that happy. And t

Recommended by Barack Obama.

Barack Obama

Former USA President

Just like us, the president enjoys a good beach read while relaxing in the sun. In 2016, he released his list of summer vacation books: Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life, William Finnegan H Is for Hawk, Helen Macdonald The Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins Seveneves, Neal Stephenson The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead [source]

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3

The Scarlet Letter

Nathaniel Hawthorne, Thomas E. Connolly, Nina Baym

4.9

Nathaniel Hawthorne's THE SCARLET LETTER reaches to our nation's historical and moral roots for the material of great tragedy. Set in an early New England colony, the novel shows the terrible impact a single, passionate act has on the lives of three members of the community: the defiant Hester Prynne; the fiery, tortured Reverend Dimmesdale; and the obsessed, vengeful Chillingworth.

With THE SCARLE

Recommended by Carol Gilligan.

Carol Gilligan

The Scarlet Letter is a tragic love story, but it’s also a story about resistance and transformation. [source]

4

The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald

4.9

A young man, newly rich, tries to recapture the past and win back his former love, despite the fact that she has married.

Recommended by Barack Obama, Bill Gates, Ev Williams, and 4 others.

Barack Obama

Former USA President

When he got to high school, the president said, his tastes changed and he learned to enjoy classics like “Of Mice and Men” and “The Great Gatsby.” [source]

Bill Gates

CEO/Microsoft

Melinda and I really like this book. When we were first dating, she had a green light that she would turn on when her office was empty and it made sense for me to come over. [source]

Marvin Liao

Partner/500 Startups

For Non-Business, I'd have to say Dune (Herbert), Emergency (Strauss), The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald) or Flint (L'Amour). I re-read these books every year because they are just so well written & great stories that I get new perspective & details every time I read them. [source]

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5

Madame Bovary

Gustave Flaubert, Margaret Mauldon, Malcolm Bowie, Mark Overstall

4.6

Clicca qui per l'edizione "Storie senza tempo".

'Oh, why, dear God, did I marry him?'

Emma Bovary is beautiful and bored, trapped in her marriage to a mediocre doctor and stifled by the banality of provincial life. An ardent devourer of sentimental novels, she longs for passion and seeks escape in fantasies of high romance, in voracious spending and, eventually, in adultery. But even her affairs bri

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6

Gone Girl

Gillian Flynn

4.6

On a warm summer morning in North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy Dunne’s fifth wedding anniversary. Presents are being wrapped and reservations are being made when Nick’s clever and beautiful wife disappears. As the police begin to investigate, the town golden boy parades a series of lies, deceits, and inappropriate behavior. Nick is oddly evasive, and he's definitely bitter - but is he re

Recommended by Kelly Vaughn.

Kelly Vaughn

@ceeoreo_ Great book! [source]

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7

Adultery

Paulo Coelho, Margaret Jull Costa, Zoë Perry

4.5

I want to change. I need to change. I'm gradually losing touch with myself.

Adultery, the provocative new novel by Paulo Coelho, best-selling author of The Alchemist and Eleven Minutes, explores the question of what it means to live life fully and happily, finding the balance between life's routine and the desire for something new.

8

Rebecca

Daphne du Maurier, Anna Massey, et al

4.5

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again . . .

The novel begins in Monte Carlo, where our heroine is swept off her feet by the dashing widower Maxim de Winter and his sudden proposal of marriage. Orphaned and working as a lady's maid, she can barely believe her luck. It is only when they arrive at his massive country estate that she realizes how large a shadow his late wife will cast over thei

Recommended by Katie Kitamura, Lucy Atkins, and Tess Gerritsen.

Katie Kitamura

It’s a novel that uses the narrative form of the psychological thriller, but in the service of exploring a single emotion: jealousy. [source]

Lucy Atkins

The main thing about Rebecca that I find completely compelling is the way that you, the reader, become complicit in a situation which, eventually, turns into a crime. [source]

Tess Gerritsen

Throughout the story, she feels the first wife haunt the house, and she can never quite measure up to her. And then the heroine begins to wonder: What if Rebecca was murdered? What if my husband did it? [source]

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9

The End of the Affair

Graham Greene, Michael Gorra

4.5

"A story has no beginning or end: arbitrarily one chooses a moment of experience from which to look ahead..."

"This is a record of hate far more than of love," writes Maurice Bendrix in the opening passages of The End of the Affair, and it is a strange hate indeed that compels him to set down the retrospective account of his adulterous affair with Sarah Miles.

Now, a year after Sarah's death, Bendri

Recommended by Evan Zimroth.

Evan Zimroth

(Laughs) Well that is a provocative question. This may come as a surprise, but I got into Gangsters, not because of the adultery, but because of the theology. So in other words, what I was doing before I began work on it was to join a study group of writers and biblical scholars who came together to talk about different parts of The Bible. And I had never done anything of the kind before. I’d never read The Bible, never considered it an interesting book. In some ways I still don’t. But I got drawn into it and spent about a year with this group, and realized at some point that I was extremely interested – and that the key to it was studying Hebrew. I joined a women’s Yeshiva and studied the Talmud. I became fascinated by the Rabbinical system of law – the ‘codes’ – and Gangsters came out of that study. The protagonist there, Nicole, knows all about that system, but she remains sceptical of it. She’s asking, ‘What are the loopholes? How do I get out of it?’. [source]

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10

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Milan Kundera

4.5

In The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera tells the story of a young woman in love with a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing and one of his mistresses and her humbly faithful lover. This magnificent novel juxtaposes geographically distant places; brilliant and playful reflections; and a variety of styles to take its place as perhaps the major achievement of

Recommended by Ev Williams, Evan Spiegel, Alain de Botton, and 6 others.

Evan Spiegel

Evan Spiegel said this was his favorite book. [source]

Alain de Botton

This book was recommended by on page 488 in "Tools of Titans". [source]

Bernard Tan

I wasn’t expecting anything going into it, but I am currently quite engrossed by Kundera’s understanding of humanity and his beautiful writing style. [source]

11

A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire, #3)

George R. R. Martin

4.5

An alternate cover for this isbn can be found here.

Here is the third volume in George R.R. Martin's magnificent cycle of novels that includes A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings. Together, this series comprises a genuine masterpiece of modern fantasy, destined to stand as one of the great achievements of imaginative fiction.

Of the five contenders for power, one is dead, another in disfavor, and

Recommended by Elon Musk.

Elon Musk

Founder/SpaceX

Best books in recent years imo are Iain Banks & George Martin. [source]

12

The Alchemist

Paulo Coelho

4.4

Preview Summary

Paulo Coelho's enchanting novel has inspired a devoted following around the world. This story, dazzling in its powerful simplicity and inspiring wisdom, is about an Andalusian shepherd boy named Santiago who travels from his homeland in Spain to the Egyptian desert in search of a treasure buried in the Pyramids. What starts out as a journey to find worldly goods turns into a discovery of the treas

Recommended by Tony Robbins, Anthony Robbins, Brené Brown, and 27 others.

Brené Brown

There's a great quote in this book: When you're on the right path the universe conspires to help you! [source]

Daniel Ek

It was fascinating to talk to the author about how this book came to be such a hit—he never backed down, and he allowed people to read it for free in order to then boost sales—much like how Spotify’s freemium model was perceived in the early days. [source]

Eric Ripert

Speaks of everyone having an ultimate goal in life, but most of us are too afraid to pursue it. The encouragement to fulfill your dreams is very inspirational! [source]

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13

The Painted Veil

W. Somerset Maugham

4.4

Set in England and Hong Kong in the 1920s, The Painted Veil is the story of the beautiful, but love-starved Kitty Fane.

When her husband discovers her adulterous affair, he forces her to accompany him to the heart of a cholera epidemic. Stripped of the British society of her youth and the small but effective society she fought so hard to attain in Hong Kong, she is compelled by her awakening consci

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14

Lady Chatterley's Lover

D.H. Lawrence

4.4

Lawrence's frank portrayal of an extramarital affair and the explicit sexual explorations of it's central characters caused this controversial book, now considered a masterpiece, to be banned as pornography until 1960.

Recommended by Anthony Julius.

Anthony Julius

Of course, this book was also the object of censoring attention, culminating in a couple of trials (one in the States and one in Britain). But it’s also itself about the violation of norms – in this case, the violation of the marriage contract and the norm of monogamous living. [source]

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15

The Paris Wife

Paula McLain

4.4

A deeply evocative story of ambition and betrayal, The Paris Wife captures a remarkable period of time and a love affair between two unforgettable people: Ernest Hemingway and his wife Hadley.

Chicago, 1920: Hadley Richardson is a quiet twenty-eight-year-old who has all but given up on love and happiness—until she meets Ernest Hemingway and her life changes forever. Following a whirlwind courtship

Recommended by Wai Chee Dimock.

Wai Chee Dimock

This book is told in the first person, in the voice of Hadley. In that way it’s a good complement to Monique Truong’s book, which is told in the voice of the cook. Paula McLain did a good job in terms of historical research, and in fleshing out Hadley’s psychology. [source]

16

A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, #2)

George R. R. Martin

4.4

A comet the color of blood and flame cuts across the sky. Two great leaders—Lord Eddard Stark and Robert Baratheon—who hold sway over an age of enforced peace are dead, victims of royal treachery. Now, from the ancient citadel of Dragonstone to the forbidding shores of Winterfell, chaos reigns. Six factions struggle for control of a divided land and the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms, preparing

Recommended by Elon Musk.

Elon Musk

Founder/SpaceX

Best books in recent years imo are Iain Banks & George Martin. [source]

17

The Husband's Secret

Liane Moriarty

4.4

At the heart of The Husband’s Secret is a letter that’s not meant to be read

My darling Cecilia, if you’re reading this, then I’ve died...

Imagine that your husband wrote you a letter, to be opened after his death. Imagine, too, that the letter contains his deepest, darkest secret—something with the potential to destroy not just the life you built together, but the lives of others as well. Imagine,

18

Outlander (Outlander, #1)

Diana Gabaldon

4.3

Claire Randall is leading a double life. She has a husband in one century, and a lover in another...

In 1945, Claire Randall, a former combat nurse, is back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon when she innocently touches a boulder in one of the ancient stone circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach an 'outlander' in a Scotland torn by war and raid

Recommended by Priscilla Pilon.

Priscilla Pilon

I just voted for Outlander (Series) #VOTEOutlander! https://t.co/MM628DhkE9 Because @Writer_DG is a flipping genius. I dare you to read the first book and not fall in love with the series. Be forewarned, you’ll lose sleep because you...can’t...stop...reading! [source]

19

Big Little Lies

Liane Moriarty

4.3

Check out the #1 New York Times bestseller Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty, called “a surefire hit” by Entertainment Weekly.

Soon to be a major HBO® series starring Nicole Kidman and Reese Witherspoon!

"The secrets burrowed in this seemingly placid small town...are so suburban noir they would make David Lynch clap with glee...[Moriarty] is a fantastically nimble writer, so sure-footed that the boo

20

Stoner

John Williams, John McGahern

4.3

William Stoner is born at the end of the nineteenth century into a dirt-poor Missouri farming family. Sent to the state university to study agronomy, he instead falls in love with English literature and embraces a scholar’s life, so different from the hardscrabble existence he has known. And yet as the years pass, Stoner encounters a succession of disappointments: marriage into a “proper” family e

Recommended by Simon Winchester.

Simon Winchester

It is a story of intellectual determination and the ability of a man to find love simply in what he does. It is a book about love of learning. [source]

21

Othello

William Shakespeare

4.3

Othello by William Shakespeare. One of the greatest classics of literary fiction, now available in high quality.

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22

Before I Go to Sleep

S. J. Watson

4.3

Christine wakes up every morning in an unfamiliar bed with an unfamiliar man. She looks in the mirror and sees an unfamiliar, middle-aged face. And every morning, the man she has woken up with must explain that he is Ben, he is her husband, she is forty-seven years old, and a terrible accident two decades earlier decimated her ability to form new memories.

Every day, Christine must begin again the

Recommended by Tess Gerritsen.

Tess Gerritsen

This is a domestic thriller, by a man writing from a female point of view. I read it when it was still in manuscript form, after an editor asked me if I wanted to do a blurb for it. I get these requests all the time. I thought, Ah, that sounds like just a clever trick. But he had me convinced from the first paragraph. [source]

23

A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1)

George R. R. Martin and Jeffrey Jones

4.3

Here is the first volume in George R. R. Martin’s magnificent cycle of novels that includes A Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords. As a whole, this series comprises a genuine masterpiece of modern fantasy, bringing together the best the genre has to offer. Magic, mystery, intrigue, romance, and adventure fill these pages and transport us to a world unlike any we have ever experienced. Already hai

Recommended by Elon Musk.

Elon Musk

Founder/SpaceX

Best books in recent years imo are Iain Banks & George Martin. [source]

24

An American Marriage

Tayari Jones

4.3

Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. He is a young executive, and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. But as they settle into the routine of their life together, they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined. Roy is arrested and sentenced to twelve years for a crime Celestial knows he didn’t commit. Thoug

Recommended by Barack Obama and Bill Gates.

Barack Obama

Former USA President

As 2018 draws to a close, I’m continuing a favorite tradition of mine and sharing my year-end lists. It gives me a moment to pause and reflect on the year through the books I found most thought-provoking, inspiring, or just plain loved. It also gives me a chance to highlight talented authors – some who are household names and others who you may not have heard of before. Here’s my best of 2018 list. [source]

Bill Gates

CEO/Microsoft

A moving look at how incarceration changes relationships. [source]

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25

Touch & Go (Tessa Leoni, #2)

Lisa Gardner

4.2

#1 New York Times bestseller Lisa Gardner, author of Catch Me and Love You More, returns with a heart-thumping thriller about what lurks behind the facade of a perfect family.

This is my family: Vanished without a trace…

Justin and Libby Denbe have the kind of life that looks good in the pages of a glossy magazine. A beautiful fifteen-year old daughter, Ashlyn. A gorgeous brownstone on a tree-lined

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26

The Awakening

Kate Chopin

4.2

When first published in 1899, The Awakening shocked readers with its honest treatment of female marital infidelity. Audiences accustomed to the pieties of late Victorian romantic fiction were taken aback by Chopin's daring portrayal of a woman trapped in a stifling marriage, who seeks and finds passionate physical love outside the confines of her domestic situation.

Aside from its unusually frank t

27

Love in the Time of Cholera

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

4.2

From the Nobel Prize-winning author of One Hundred Years of Solitude comes a masterly evocation of an unrequited passion so strong that it binds three people's lives together for more than fifty years. In the story of Florentino Ariza, who waits more than half a century to declare his undying love to the beautiful Fermina Daza, whom he lost to Dr. Juvenal Urbino so many years before, García Márque

Recommended by Bryan Callen, Kate Figes, and Tendai Biti.

Bryan Callen

So here are my three must read books. I've been reading a lot of great books like: Outsmart Your Instincts, The Culture Code, and Antonio Damasio’s The Strange Order, and sometimes when you read a lot of nonfiction it’s very enriching, sometimes you need a novel. I really believe you should take a minute and read something beautiful. Listen, listen to Lolita by Nabokov. But also listen to Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy and listen to Richard Poe narrate that. Those are two of the greatest feats of the english language that I can think of. Then there’s Fortress of Solitude, an amazing book, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, these are great novels. Cold Mountain is a beautiful novel, Snow Falling On Cedars, I mean they’ve been around for a while. But goddamnit, get those under your belt. Those are the novels I think you should read. You know Love In The Time Of Cholera it just makes you ache. Kind of like a Hemingway thing, where Hemingway “ahh!”, it’s the same thing, you know. So I don’t know, I’m a fan of all those books. Those are my 3 slash 20 books. [source]

Kate Figes

It’s partly such a passionate book because of the beauty of the prose, describing love through time and how she found contentment – love, passion and sex all in one. [source]

Tendai Biti

2)Marquez s “Love in the time of cholera” & “100 yrs of solitude “ are two of my top books but one still weeps reading or re- reading Tolstoy s “ War & Peace “a book bettered only by “ Anna Karenina. Not a fan of these motivational books but that “f#cked “ up book is quite funny [source]

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28

The Silent Wife

A. S. A. Harrison

4.2

A chilling psychological thriller about a marriage, a way of life, and how far one woman will go to keep what is rightfully hers:

Jodi and Todd are at a bad place in their marriage. Much is at stake, including the affluent life they lead in their beautiful waterfront condo in Chicago, as she, the killer, and he, the victim, rush haplessly toward the main event. He is a committed cheater. She lives

35

The Color Purple

Alice Walker

4.2

The Color Purple is a classic. With over a million copies sold in the UK alone, it is hailed as one of the all-time 'greats' of literature, inspiring generations of readers.

Set in the deep American South between the wars, it is the tale of Celie, a young black girl born into poverty and segregation. Raped repeatedly by the man she calls 'father', she has two children taken away from her, is separa

Recommended by Emma Watson.

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36

The Heart of the Matter

Graham Greene, James Wood

4.2

In a British colony in West Africa, Henry Scobie is a pious and righteous man of modest means enlisted with securing borders. But when he’s passed over for a promotion as commissioner of police, the humiliation hits hardest for his wife, Louise. Already oppressed by the appalling climate, frustrated in a loveless marriage, and belittled by the wives of more privileged officers, Louise wants out.

Fe

Recommended by William Boyd and William Boyd.

William Boyd

He gets the slightly desperate seediness of life so well. It’s a fantastically atmospheric and powerful read. [source]

William Boyd

He gets the slightly desperate seediness of life so well. It’s a fantastically atmospheric and powerful read. [source]

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37

Mansfield Park

Jane Austen, Margaret Drabble

4.2

Adopted into the household of her uncle, Sir Thomas Bertram, Fanny Price grows up a meek outsider among her cousins in the unaccustomed elegance of Mansfield Park. Soon after Sir Thomas absents himself on estate business in Antigua (the family's investment in slavery and sugar is considered in the Introduction in a new, post-colonial light), Mary Crawford and her brother Henry arrive at Mansfield,

Recommended by Mary Warnock.

Mary Warnock

This is an oddity but it is a highly moralistic novel. Fanny Price, the heroine, whom many people find rather tiresome, is a highly moral and articulate character and one of the things that intrigues me so much is that Jane Austen at the beginning of the 19th century had the correct view that you can’t be morally involved unless you feel strongly that some things are good and some things are bad. [source]

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38

A Widow for One Year

John Irvin

4.2

“One night when she was four and sleeping in the bottom bunk of her bunk bed, Ruth Cole woke to the sound of lovemaking—it was coming from her parents’ bedroom.”

This sentence opens John Irving’s ninth novel, A Widow for One Year, a story of a family marked by tragedy. Ruth Cole is a complex, often self-contradictory character—a “difficult” woman. By no means is she conventionally “nice,” but she w

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39

Mercy

Jodi Picoult

4.2

Police chief of a small Massachusetts town, Cameron McDonald makes the toughest arrest of his life when his own cousin Jamie comes to him and confesses outright that he has killed his terminally ill wife out of mercy.

Now, a heated murder trial plunges the town into upheaval, and drives a wedge into a contented marriage: Cameron, aiding the prosecution in their case against Jamie, is suddenly at od

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40

The Obituary Writer

Ann Hood

4.2

On the day John F. Kennedy is inaugurated, Claire, a young wife and mother obsessed with the glamor of Jackie, struggles over the decision of whether to stay in a loveless but secure marriage or to follow the man she loves and whose baby she may be carrying. Decades earlier, in 1919, Vivien Lowe, an obituary writer, is searching for her lover, who disappeared in the Great San Francisco Earthquake

41

Katherine

Anya Seton, Philippa Gregory

4.2

This classic romance novel tells the true story of the love affair that changed history—that of Katherine Swynford and John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, the ancestors of most of the British royal family. Set in the vibrant 14th century of Chaucer and the Black Death, the story features knights fighting in battle, serfs struggling in poverty, and the magnificent Plantagenets—Edward III, the Black P

Recommended by Alison Weir.

Alison Weir

This is one of my all-time favourite historical novels; it’s absolutely inspirational. Every sentence is a joy. It was written in 1954 and is, of course, of its time – bodice rippers came later. But it’s written with such integrity, and I see it as a benchmark for historical novels. Anya Seton was an American author and she spent four years in Britain researching this novel. Given the sources available to her at the time, it’s brilliant. It has inspired so many people. In 2003 the BBC did a poll, ‘The Big Read’, of all-time favourite books, and Katherine came in the top 100. It’s never been out of print. [source]

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42

Everything I Never Told You

Celeste Ng

4.2

Lydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet.

So begins this exquisite novel about a Chinese American family living in 1970s small-town Ohio. Lydia is the favorite child of Marilyn and James Lee, and her parents are determined that she will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue. But when Lydia’s body is found in the local lake, the delicate balancing act that has been keeping the Lee family

Recommended by Sherrilyn Ifill.

Sherrilyn Ifill

@BronxRiverBooks @pronounced_ing I love this book. [source]

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43

Little Bee

Chris Cleave

4.2

From the author of the international bestseller Incendiary comes a haunting novel about the tenuous friendship that blooms between two disparate strangers—one an illegal Nigerian refugee, the other a recent widow from suburban London.

Recommended by David Miliband.

David Miliband

It’s about Little Bee, a Nigerian refugee. [source]

44

The Silent Patient

Alex Michaelides

4.2

Alicia Berenson’s life is seemingly perfect. A famous painter married to an in-demand fashion photographer, she lives in a grand house with big windows overlooking a park in one of London’s most desirable areas. One evening her husband Gabriel returns home late from a fashion shoot, and Alicia shoots him five times in the face, and then never speaks another word.

Alicia’s refusal to talk, or give a

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45

Healing Your Marriage When Trust Is Broken: Finding Forgiveness and Restoration

Cindy Beall and Craig Groeschel

4.1

A few days after an ordinary Valentine’s Day, Cindy Beall’s life changed forever. She listened with disbelief to her husband, Chris, a respected pastor, confess to pornography addiction, numerous affairs, and the startling news that a woman was pregnant with his child.

With raw honesty and intimate knowledge of pain and of God’s power to resurrect something new out of the debris of betrayal, Cindy

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46

Tender Is the Night

F. Scott Fitzgerald

4.1

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in a friend's copy of Tender Is the Night, "If you liked The Great Gatsby, for God's sake read this. Gatsby was a tour de force but this is a confession of faith." Set in the South of France in the decade after World War I, Tender Is the Night is the story of a brilliant and magnetic psychiatrist named Dick Diver; the bewitching, wealthy, and dangerously unstable mental p

Recommended by Leo Babauta.

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47

The Good Soldier

Ford Madox Ford

4.1

Recommended by Alexandra Harris.

Alexandra Harris

It really is a sad story, about four people – two couples – who are at a German spa resort, in love with the wrong people. [source]

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48

The Prince of Tides

Pat Conroy, Dan John Miller

4.1

PAT CONROY has created a huge, brash thunderstorm of a novel, stinging with honesty and resounding with drama. Spanning forty years, this is the story of turbulent Tom Wingo, his gifted and troubled twin sister Savannah, and their struggle to triumph over the dark and tragic legacy of the extraordinary family into which they were born.

Filled with the vanishing beauty of the South Carolina low coun

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49

Leave a Cheater, Gain a Life: The Chump Lady's Survival Guide

Tracy Schorn

4.1

Leave a Cheater, Gain a Life is a no-nonsense self-help guide for anyone who has ever been cheated on. Here's advice not based on saving your relationship after infidelity—but saving your sanity.

When it comes to cheating, a lot of the attention is focused on cheaters—their unmet needs or their challenges with monogamy. But Tracy Schorn (aka Chump Lady) lampoons such blameshifting and puts the focu

50

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

Taylor Jenkins Reid

4.1

Reclusive Hollywood icon Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandalous life. But when she chooses unknown magazine reporter Monique Grant to write her story, no one is more astounded than Monique herself.

Determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career, Monique listens in fascination. From making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to

Recommended by Jacqui Pretty and Sahil Lavingia.

Jacqui Pretty

When it comes to fiction, there are so many to choose from! Some books I've loved in the past year include The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid. [source]

Sahil Lavingia

@alexbdebrie best book i've read recently is The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. [source]

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51

Doctor Zhivago

Boris Pasternak

4.1

This epic tale about the effects of the Russian Revolution and its aftermath on a bourgeois family was not published in the Soviet Union until 1987. One of the results of its publication in the West was Pasternak's complete rejection by Soviet authorities; when he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958 he was compelled to decline it. The book quickly became an international best-seller

52

Undeniable (Undeniable, #1)

Douglas Ax

4.1

Librarian Note: Alternate Cover Edition for 9781301741724.

*Warning* (This book contains several aspects of the uglier side of life; it is not for everyone.)

The story of Deuce and Eva...

An undeniable connection that stands the test of time.

Unforgettable moments.

Love and pain and everything in between.

I was five years old when I met Deuce, he was twenty-three, and it was visiting day at Riker's Isla

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53

Little Children

Tom Perrotta

4.1

Tom Perrotta's thirtyish parents of young children are a varied and surprising bunch. There's Todd, the handsome stay-at-home dad dubbed "The Prom King" by the moms at the playground, and his wife, Kathy, a documentary filmmaker envious of the connection Todd has forged with their toddler son. And there's Sarah, a lapsed feminist surprised to find she's become a typical wife in a traditional marri

54

Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality

Christopher Ryan, Cacilda Jethá

4.1

Preview Summary

“Sex at Dawn challenges conventional wisdom about sex in a big way. By examining the prehistoric origins of human sexual behavior the authors are able to expose the fallacies and weaknesses of standard theories proposed by most experts. This is a provocative, entertaining, and pioneering book. I learned a lot from it and recommend it highly.” — Andrew Weil, M.D.

“Sex at Dawn irrefutably shows that

Recommended by Noah Kagan, Aubrey Marcus, and Esther Perel.

Noah Kagan

Founder/Sumo

A few months ago, I was drinking a Noah’s Mill whiskey (cute) with my good buddy Brian Balfour and talking about life... During the conversation, we got on the topic of books that changed our lives. I want to share them with you. I judge a book's success if a year later I'm still using at least 1 thing from the book. [source]

Esther Perel

Esther Perel recommended this book as an answer to "What are some resources for couples who want to explore having a more “monogamish” relationship?" [source]

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55

The Ocean at the End of the Lane

Neil Gaiman

4.1

Sussex, England. A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. Although the house he lived in is long gone, he is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock, and her mother and grandmother. He hasn't thought of Lettie in decades, and yet as he sits by the pond (a pond that she'd claimed was an o

Recommended by Asher Wolf and Zoe Keating.

Asher Wolf

@trib I love that book. So much. [source]

Zoe Keating

For a while in 2015 I lost the ability to read (PTSD, I’m told) and “The Ocean at the End of the Lane” and Eli Brown’s “Cinnamon & Gunpowder” were the first books I was able to understand and enjoy. @neilhimself’s book in particular was like a hand pulling me up. https://t.co/foEbRxYbuj [source]

56

Howards End

E M Forster

4.1

Howards End is a novel by E. M. Forster about social conventions, codes of conduct and relationships in turn-of-the-century England. A strong-willed and intelligent woman refuses to allow the pretensions of her husband's smug English family to ruin her life. Howards End is considered by some to be Forster's masterpiece.

Recommended by Tracy Chevalier.

Tracy Chevalier

Mrs Wilcox tells Margaret Schlegel of a superstition about the wych-elm which grows by her family home, Howards End. [source]

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57

Vanity Fair

William Makepeace Thackeray, John Carey

4.1

A novel that chronicles the lives of two women who could not be more different: Becky Sharp, an orphan whose only resources are her vast ambitions, her native wit, and her loose morals; and her schoolmate Amelia Sedley, a typically naive Victorian heroine, the pampered daughter of a wealthy family.

Recommended by John Sutherland and Stella Tillyard.

John Sutherland

This was Thackeray’s first major novel … It is panoramic – a wonderful conspectus of the 19th century. [source]

Stella Tillyard

Vanity Fair is another historical novel and a tremendous saga. I would call it the Whig version of the Regency. It is the tale of an adventuress abroad in a land where quick fortunes and metropolitan vices are very much in evidence. It is fantastically good humoured. I suppose it is the way that a liberal Victorian would look back on that time. [source]

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58

The World According to Garp

John Irving

4.1

The World According to Garp is a comic and compassionate coming-of-age novel that established John Irving as one of the most imaginative writers of his generation. A worldwide bestseller since its publication in 1978, Irving's classic is filled with stories inside stories about the life and times of T. S. Garp, novelist and bastard son of Jenny Fields--a feminist leader ahead of her time. Beyond t

Recommended by Riz Khan.

Riz Khan

This was given to me by a schoolfriend who told me that the character, Garp, really reminded her of me. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of that once I’d read it, but I could relate to this guy. I’d like to think I have an easy-going outlook on life – you don’t have to agree – and I was brought up by a single mum and I think John Irving is very much on the side of women. He takes a strong look at feminism in this book and its pros and cons, at how when it gets to extreme levels of hating men it creates its own problems, but he looks also at how women become victims. He marries his childhood sweetheart and they endure a lot, infidelity, the loss of a child, terrible things. Garp is a strong character and it’s even funny the way he was conceived. His mother was a nurse and she notices that this airman on his deathbed has got a huge erection, so she decides to get on and have a ride and have a child because she wants a child and not a husband. But really it’s about Garp meeting and marrying his wife and how their love survives trials and difficulties, how love can persist and be strong through tough times. Again this was made into a film with Robin Williams playing Garp and there’s a wonderful moment showing how quirky Garp can be – Garp and his wife are looking at this beautiful house and an aircraft crashes into it, and Garp says: ‘We have to buy it! It’s been pre-disastered!’ [source]

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59

Thérèse Raquin

Émile Zola, Robin Buss

4.1

One of Zola's most famous realist novels, Therese Raquin is a clinically observed, sinister tale of adultery and murder among the lower classes in nineteenth-century Parisian society.

Set in the claustrophobic atmosphere of a dingy haberdasher's shop in the passage du Pont-Neuf in Paris, this powerful novel tells how the heroine and her lover, Laurent, kill her husband, Camille, but are subsequentl

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60

Freedom

Jonathan Franzen

4.1

Patty and Walter Berglund were the new pioneers of old St. Paul—the gentrifiers, the hands-on parents, the avant-garde of the Whole Foods generation. Patty was the ideal sort of neighbor, who could tell you where to recycle your batteries and how to get the local cops to actually do their job. She was an enviably perfect mother and the wife of Walter's dreams. Together with Walter—environmental la

Recommended by Oprah Winfrey, Ellen de Bruin, and Ken Powell.

Oprah Winfrey

CEO/O Network

You don’t hear me say this word often, but this book is a masterpiece ... It’s an epic family saga—it’s got everything—sex and love, even rock n’ roll, and everything you want in a book. [source]

Ellen de Bruin

I had a theory about that, but I looked it up and it turned out to be wrong. Jonathan Franzen said in an interview why he called it Freedom, that he gave the title to the publisher because he really, really wanted to be free. My theory was rather different. In the book, some people explore their own freedom in relationships with others – there is the boy Joey, Patty’s son, who behaves very badly. He’s really seeking the edge of freedom – trying to be really free in that family, and harming other people by doing so. Later on in the novel, Patty explores her own freedom in a way that harms her husband. When I finished the book I thought it was about people seeking freedom at the cost of others. And although I can imagine people seeing the world in that way, that is something I really didn’t like about the book. People can be free and act free, and still have responsibility for other people’s feelings. [source]

Ken Powell

CEO of General Mills, , is into a different genre of books, the novel kind with great life lessons. “Freedom” is one of those books. [source]

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61

The Kitchen House

Kathleen Grissom

4.1

When a white servant girl violates the order of plantation society, she unleashes a tragedy that exposes the worst and best in the people she has come to call her family. Orphaned while onboard ship from Ireland, seven-year-old Lavinia arrives on the steps of a tobacco plantation where she is to live and work with the slaves of the kitchen house. Under the care of Belle, the master's illegitimate

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62

City of Girls

Elizabeth Gilbert

4.1

From the # 1 New York Times bestselling author of Eat, Pray, Love and The Signature of All Things, a delicious novel of glamour, sex, and adventure, about a young woman discovering that you don't have to be a good girl to be a good person.

Life is both fleeting and dangerous, and there is no point in denying yourself pleasure, or being anything other than what you are.

Beloved author Elizabeth Gilbe

Recommended by Rogue Epa and Sarah Lahbati.

Rogue Epa

Tom Wolfe

4.1

Should you ever go back?

It has been ten years since Abby Williams left home and scrubbed away all visible evidence of her small town roots. Now working as an environmental lawyer in Chicago, she has a thriving career, a modern apartment, and her pick of meaningless one-night stands.

But when a new case takes her back home to Barrens, Indiana, the life Abby painstakingly created begins to crack. Tas

Evelyn Waugh

4.0

The most nostalgic and reflective of Evelyn Waugh's novels, Brideshead Revisited looks back to the golden age before the Second World War. It tells the story of Charles Ryder's infatuation with the Marchmains and the rapidly-disappearing world of privilege they inhabit. Enchanted first by Sebastian at Oxford, then by his doomed Catholic family, in particular his remote sister, Julia, Charles comes

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79

Ethan Frome

Edith Wharton, Elizabeth Ammons

4.0

Edith Wharton

4.0

The Age of Innocence is Edith Wharton's twelfth novel, initially serialized in four parts in the Pictorial Review magazine in 1920, and later released by D. Appleton and Company as a book in New York and in London. It won the 1921 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, making it the first novel written by a woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and thus Wharton the first woman to win the prize. The st

Recommended by Anne Thériault.

Anne Thériault

@AngstyX I love that book! [source]

88

The Canterbury Tales

Geoffrey Chaucer, Nevill Coghill

4.0

The procession that crosses Chaucer's pages is as full of life and as richly textured as a medieval tapestry. The Knight, the Miller, the Friar, the Squire, the Prioress, the Wife of Bath, and others who make up the cast of characters -- including Chaucer himself -- are real people, with human emotions and weaknesses. When it is remembered that Chaucer wrote in English at a time when Latin was the

Recommended by Marion Turner.

Marion Turner

Each individual tale can be interpreted in so many ways—Chaucer really opens up possibilities of multiple interpretations. Even when he seems to give you a clear moral, that moral is never effective or convincing. He’s always saying: ‘Find your own moral; find your own meaning.’ [source]

89

Cheating in a Nutshell: What Infidelity Does to The Victim

Wayne Mitchell

4.0

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90

Little Tea

Claire Fullerto

4.0

Southern Culture … Old Friendships … Family Tragedy
One phone call from Renny to come home and “see about” the capricious Ava and Celia Wakefield decides to overlook her distressful past in the name of friendship.
For three reflective days at Renny’s lake house in Heber Springs, Arkansas, the three childhood friends reunite and examine life, love, marriage, and the ties that bind, even though Celia’

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91

The Couple Next Door

Shari Lapena

4.0

It all started at a dinner party. . .

A domestic suspense debut about a young couple and their apparently friendly neighbors--a twisty, rollercoaster ride of lies, betrayal, and the secrets between husbands and wives. . .

Anne and Marco Conti seem to have it all--a loving relationship, a wonderful home, and their beautiful baby, Cora. But one night when they are at a dinner party next door, a terrib

Recommended by Gary Bury and Richard Osman.

Gary Bury

The book at the side of my bed is The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena. Unusually for me I choose it from a book store based on the current charts. I just wanted a book that was neither Children's, work or current affairs related, something to switch off to, bedtime reading. [source]

Richard Osman

Just finished this wonderful book by the brilliant @sharilapena. So full of twists, yet so utterly believable. Loved it! https://t.co/af4xSjwXT1 [source]

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92

Adultery by Paulo Coelho (2015-04-09)

Paulo Coelho

4.0

Cover unavailable

93

Damage

Josephine Hart

4.0

Damage is the gripping story of a man’s desperate obsession and scandalous love affair. He is a man who appears to have everything: wealth, a beautiful wife and children, and a prestigious political career in Parliament. But his life lacks passion, and his aching emptiness drives him to an all-consuming, and ultimately catastrophic, relationship with his son’s fiancée.

Chilling and brilliant, Damag

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94

Ulysses

James Joyce

4.0

Loosely based on the Odyssey, this landmark of modern literature follows ordinary Dubliners in 1904. Capturing a single day in the life of Dubliner Leopold Bloom, his friends Buck Mulligan and Stephen Dedalus, his wife Molly, and a scintillating cast of supporting characters, Joyce pushes Celtic lyricism and vulgarity to splendid extremes. Captivating experimental techniques range from interior mo

Recommended by Andi Dumitrescu, Charles Fernyhough, Debbie Millman, and 4 others.

Andi Dumitrescu

If I had to make a more rational choice, I’d go with Ulises or The Master and Margareta, but I think that choice is a bit snobbish. [source]

Charles Fernyhough

The archetypal stream of consciousness novel. Joyce didn’t invent the technique, but he makes it flourish in the most extraordinary way. [source]

Debbie Millman

I also really love a line from this book, which is 'The longest way around is the shortest way home.' [source]

95

Olive Kitteridge (Olive Kitteridge, #1)

Elizabeth Strout

4.0

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Olive Kitteridge offers profound insights into the human condition – its conflicts, its tragedies and joys, and the endurance it requires.

At times stern, at other times patient, at times perceptive, at other times in sad denial, Olive Kitteridge, a retired schoolteacher, deplores the changes in her little town of Crosby, Maine, and in the world at large, but she doesn

Recommended by Alina Varlanuta.

Alina Varlanuta

I don’t have a favourite book. But I do have favourite characters: The flawed and broken Olive Kitteridge assembled by Elizabeth Strout. [source]

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96

My Confession Book

M. Andrine Welters O.S.B.

4.0

A little classic from 1958 that has assisted many children with their First Confession as well as subsequent confessions. Boys and girls who use this book will receive wonderful help with making a careful examination of conscience in accord with the Ten Commandments, having true sorrow for their sins, making a firm purpose of Amendment, and remembering what to do and say in the confessional. Impr.

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97

Third Degree

Greg Iles

4.0

Sometimes the gravest dangers -- and the darkest souls -- live right beside us....

In the span of twenty-four hours, every-thing Laurel Shields believes about her life and her marriage to a prominent doctor will be shattered -- if she survives a terrifying ordeal. The day begins with the jarring discovery that, soon after ending an affair, Laurel is pregnant. But when she returns home to find her h

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98

Heart of the Matter

Emily Giffin

4.0

Tessa Russo is the mother of two young children and the wife of a renowned pediatric surgeon. Despite her own mother's warnings, Tessa has recently given up her career to focus on her family and the pursuit of domestic happiness. From the outside, she seems destined to live a charmed life.

Valerie Anderson is an attorney and single mother to six-year-old Charlie—a boy who has never known his fathe

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99

The Kind Worth Killing

Peter Swanson

4.0

A devious tale of psychological suspense involving sex, deception, and an accidental encounter that leads to murder. Fans of Paula Hawkins’ The Girl on the Train will love this modern reimagining of Patricia Highsmith’s classic Strangers on a Train from the author of the acclaimed The Girl with a Clock for a Heart—which the Washington Post said “should be a contender for crime fiction’s best first

Cover unavailable

100

When Happily Ever After Shatters: Seeing God in the Midst of Divorce & Single Parenting

Sue Birdseye and Shaunti Feldhahn

4.0

With abandonment and adultery, there is no five-step plan for survival, but there can be hope and healing. When Happily Ever After Shatters will be a comfort to those who grieve in solitude, and a hope-filled practical guide for those whose lives have changed irrevocably. Susan Birdseye will help readers learn to honor God when there is no hope of restoration, survive abandonment in and out of mar