“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.

Novelist Tim Lott, whose autobiographical book Under the Same Stars lays bare a dysfunctional relationship with his brother, tells us about love and rivalry among siblings – and, from Cain and Abel on, the dark, even murderous, impulses that can be engendered between them.

Bibliotherapist Ella Berthoud prescribes some reading for love. Rekindle your relationship, remember first passions and beware obsessive love with help from these suggestions.

Family dynamics are changing dramatically in our modern, workaholic age. The novelist – and sister of Steve Jobs, separated at birth – selects five works of fiction that illustrate some truths about families in all their variety

The author of the self-satirising memoir on ambitious “tiger mothers” talks us through the books about motherhood that have made the most impact on her.

Research shows that middle-aged sex is the best of people’s lives, says journalist and author Kate Figes. She picks the best books on sex and marriage.

The poet, novelist and author of memoirs explores parallels between faith in the divine and commitment to a worldly erotic passion, and books that show you can have purity within licentiousness

As a young Dutch Jewish girl, Johanna Reiss survived World War II hidden in the attic of a farmer called Johan Oosterveld. Her memoir of that time, The Upstairs Room, is still read in schools today. But while she was researching that book in 1969, her American husband, Jim, killed himself. In this interview, she recommends books on the painful subject of suicide, as well as the music that helped heal the pain.

Jonathan Rauch, the National Journal columnist and author of Gay Marriage: Why It Is Good for Gays, Good for Straights, and Good for America, recounts his own marriage odyssey, starting with Mary Poppins.