Family & Relationships

Twins are literary gold, but they also open the door to a host of fundamental questions about identity, freedom and even love, says Helena de Bres, a philosopher at Wellesley College and herself an identical twin. She recommends five philosophically evocative books involving twins, from YA romance to John Steinbeck, winner of the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Birth is a transformational experience but it's also an emotionally fraught one, with sometimes traumatic consequences, says midwife Leah Hazard. Here she recommends five books that discuss the deep psychological impact of childbirth, the debate over interventionism, and the inequalities baked into the practice of obstetrics.

The story of a family never ends, says Thea Lenarduzzi—the literary critic and author of the prize-winning family memoir Dandelions: "It’s always evolving, rewriting itself, long after the protagonists are dead." Here, she recommends five books on family history that illustrate the shapeshifting nature of this hard-to-pin-down subject, in which memories rarely tally with the written record.

“Love,” wrote Ovid, “is no assignment for cowards.” Cultural critic Mia Levitin talks us through the history of seduction from the Classical era, through ballroom dancing, calling cards and into the present age of swiping on our mobile phones. Here she recommends five of the best books for those braving the modern dating scene.

Love and marriage may go together like a horse and carriage, but what happens when the horses are spooked and the whole procession is run off the road? Katie Kitamura, whose new novel A Separation charts the disastrous—and tragic—failure of a marriage, considers some of literature’s most heartfelt accounts of relationship failure

Systems thinking is key to figuring out how relationships work, says Mira Kirshenbaum, psychotherapist and clinical director of the Chestnut Hill Institute. She chooses the best books to help us understand modern relationship therapy.

The award-winning writer recommends the best books on friendship, the theme of her latest novel Animals.

Aristotle tells us that all politics starts in the family, and nowhere is that more obvious than in the infamously fraught relationship between mother and daughter. Here, the novelist, playwright and poet Deborah Levy chooses five books – or rather, four books and one film – that explore motherhood.

In her book The Rival Queens, historian Nancy Goldstone explored the destructive relationship between Marguerite de Valois and her mother Catherine de' Medici. Here she chooses five different memoirs that best explore the emotionally complex dynamics that characterise mother-daughter relationships.

Fathers and mothers play very different roles in a child’s development, says Kyle Pruett, Clinical Professor in the Child Study Center at Yale School of Medicine—and both are essential. He recommends books on fathers and fatherhood—for both parents.