10 Best Books To Read For Women Who Haven’t Loved a Book in a Long Time

If you’ve been picking up books lately and feeling absolutely nothing, these are the ones I’d hand you first. These draw you in slowly, stay in your head for days. I’ve included books like The Homegoing, The Great Alone and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. I hope you will enjoy these books as much as I did.

The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle

The Power of Now is about learning how to stop overthinking and actually live in the present moment. Eckhart Tolle explains how stress, anxiety, and unhappiness often come from being trapped in our thoughts or worrying about the future. It sounds deep at first, but the writing is surprisingly easy to follow. If you constantly feel mentally exhausted or stuck in your own head, this book feels like someone calmly helping you slow down and breathe again.

To make the journey into the Now we will need to leave our analytical mind and its false created self, the ego, behind. From the very first page of Eckhart Tolle’s extraordinary book, we move rapidly into a significantly higher altitude where we breathe a lighter air. We become connected to the indestructible essence of our Being, “The eternal, ever present One Life beyond the myriad forms of life that are subject to birth and death.” Although the journey is challenging, Eckhart Tolle uses simple language and an easy question-and-answer format to guide us.

A word-of-mouth phenomenon since its first publication, The Power of Now is one of those rare books with the power to create an experience in readers, one that can radically change their lives for the better.

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City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert

City of Girls follows Vivian Morris, a young woman who moves to New York City in the 1940s after getting kicked out of college. She ends up working around a chaotic theater filled with glamorous, messy, and unforgettable people. Vivian makes mistakes, falls in love, embarrasses herself, and slowly figures out who she wants to be. It’s fun, emotional, dramatic, and honestly feels like listening to your coolest grandmother tell you wild stories about her life.

In 1940, nineteen-year-old Vivian Morris has just been kicked out of Vassar College, owing to her lackluster freshman-year performance. Her affluent parents send her to Manhattan to live with her Aunt Peg, who owns a flamboyant, crumbling midtown theater called the Lily Playhouse. There Vivian is introduced to an entire cosmos of unconventional and charismatic characters, from the fun-chasing showgirls to a sexy male actor, a grand-dame actress, a lady-killer writer, and no-nonsense stage manager. But when Vivian makes a personal mistake that results in professional scandal, it turns her new world upside down in ways that it will take her years to fully understand. Ultimately, though, it leads her to a new understanding of the kind of life she craves-and the kind of freedom it takes to pursue it. It will also lead to the love of her life, a love that stands out from all the rest.

Now ninety-five years old and telling her story at last, Vivian recalls how the events of those years altered the course of her life – and the gusto and autonomy with which she approached it.

Beloved author Elizabeth Gilbert returns to fiction with a unique love story set in the New York City theater world during the 1940s. Told from the perspective of an older woman as she looks back on her youth with both pleasure and regret (but mostly pleasure), City of Girls explores themes of female sexuality and promiscuity, as well as the idiosyncrasies of true love. Written with a powerful wisdom about human desire and connection, City of Girls is a love story like no other.

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Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi

Homegoing follows generations of one family across hundreds of years, starting in Ghana during the slave trade. Each chapter follows a different family member, showing how trauma, history, and survival shape their lives over time. Some parts are heartbreaking, but the writing is beautiful and powerful. It’s one of those books that makes history feel personal instead of distant.

A novel of breathtaking sweep and emotional power that traces three hundred years in Ghana and along the way also becomes a truly great American novel. Extraordinary for its exquisite language, its implacable sorrow, its soaring beauty, and for its monumental portrait of the forces that shape families and nations, Homegoing heralds the arrival of a major new voice in contemporary fiction.

Two half-sisters, Effia and Esi, are born into different villages in eighteenth-century Ghana. Effia is married off to an Englishman and lives in comfort in the palatial rooms of Cape Coast Castle. Unbeknownst to Effia, her sister, Esi, is imprisoned beneath her in the castle’s dungeons, sold with thousands of others into the Gold Coast’s booming slave trade, and shipped off to America, where her children and grandchildren will be raised in slavery. One thread of Homegoing follows Effia’s descendants through centuries of warfare in Ghana, as the Fante and Asante nations wrestle with the slave trade and British colonization. The other thread follows Esi and her children into America. From the plantations of the South to the Civil War and the Great Migration, from the coal mines of Pratt City, Alabama, to the jazz clubs and dope houses of twentieth-century Harlem, right up through the present day, Homegoing makes history visceral, and captures, with singular and stunning immediacy, how the memory of captivity came to be inscribed in the soul of a nation.

Generation after generation, Yaa Gyasi’s magisterial first novel sets the fate of the individual against the obliterating movements of time, delivering unforgettable characters whose lives were shaped by historical forces beyond their control. Homegoing is a tremendous reading experience, not to be missed, by an astonishingly gifted young writer.

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The Correspondent by Virginia Evans

The Correspondent follows an older woman named Sybil who spends her days writing letters to friends, family, authors, and even people from her past. Through those letters, you slowly learn about her regrets, memories, heartbreak, and the life she’s built. It’s quiet, thoughtful, and comforting in a way that sneaks up on you. Must read for women who love character-driven stories.

“Imagine, the letters one has sent out into the world, the letters received back in turn, are like the pieces of a magnificent puzzle. . . . Isn’t there something wonderful in that, to think that a story of one’s life is preserved in some way, that this very letter may one day mean something, even if it is a very small thing, to someone?”

Filled with knowledge that only comes from a life fully lived, The Correspondent is a gem of a novel about the power of finding solace in literature and connection with people we might never meet in person. It is about the hubris of youth and the wisdom of old age, and the mistakes and acts of kindness that occur during a lifetime.

Sybil Van Antwerp has throughout her life used letters to make sense of the world and her place in it. Most mornings, around half past ten, Sybil sits down to write letters—to her brother, to her best friend, to the president of the university who will not allow her to audit a class she desperately wants to take, to Joan Didion and Larry McMurtry to tell them what she thinks of their latest books, and to one person to whom she writes often yet never sends the letter.

Sybil expects her world to go on as it always has—a mother, grandmother, wife, divorcee, distinguished lawyer, she has lived a very full life. But when letters from someone in her past force her to examine one of the most painful periods of her life, she realizes that the letter she has been writing over the years needs to be read and that she cannot move forward until she finds it in her heart to offer forgiveness.

Sybil Van Antwerp’s life of letters might be “a very small thing,” but she also might be one of the most memorable characters you will ever read.

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The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Evelyn Hugo is a legendary Hollywood actress finally ready to tell the truth about her glamorous and scandal-filled life. As she shares her story with a struggling journalist, you slowly learn that Evelyn is much more complicated than people think. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is filled with fame, ambition, heartbreak, secrets, and one unforgettable love story. It’s dramatic in the best way and incredibly easy to binge-read.

Aging and reclusive Hollywood movie 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 for the job, no one is more astounded than Monique herself. Why her? Why now?

Monique is not exactly on top of the world. Her husband has left her, and her professional life is going nowhere. Regardless of why Evelyn has selected her to write her biography, Monique is determined to use this opportunity to jumpstart her career.

Summoned to Evelyn’s luxurious apartment, Monique listens in fascination as the actress tells her story. From making her way to Los Angeles in the 1950s to her decision to leave show business in the `80s, and, of course, the seven husbands along the way, Evelyn unspools a tale of ruthless ambition, unexpected friendship, and a great forbidden love. Monique begins to feel a very real connection to the legendary star, but as Evelyn’s story near its conclusion, it becomes clear that her life intersects with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways.

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Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

Kya Clark grows up almost completely alone in the marshes of North Carolina after being abandoned by her family. The town sees her as strange and wild, but she’s intelligent, observant, and deeply connected to nature. When a local man is found dead, people immediately blame her. Part mystery and part coming-of-age story, Where the Crawdads Sing is emotional, lonely, and beautiful all at once.

For years, rumors of the “Marsh Girl” haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet fishing village. Kya Clark is barefoot and wild; unfit for polite society. So in late 1969, when the popular Chase Andrews is found dead, locals immediately suspect her.

But Kya is not what they say. A born naturalist with just one day of school, she takes life’s lessons from the land, learning the real ways of the world from the dishonest signals of fireflies. But while she has the skills to live in solitude forever, the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. Drawn to two young men from town, who are each intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new and startling world—until the unthinkable happens.

In Where the Crawdads Sing, Owens juxtaposes an exquisite ode to the natural world against a profound coming of age story and haunting mystery. Thought-provoking, wise, and deeply moving, Owens’s debut novel reminds us that we are forever shaped by the child within us, while also subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.

The story asks how isolation influences the behavior of a young woman, who like all of us, has the genetic propensity to belong to a group. The clues to the mystery are brushed into the lush habitat and natural histories of its wild creatures.

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The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah

The Great Alone follows a family that moves to remote Alaska hoping for a fresh start after the father returns from war deeply changed. At first, Alaska feels exciting and full of possibility, but the isolation and harsh winters slowly bring out darker problems inside the family. It’s emotional, intense, and the kind of book that completely takes over your thoughts while reading.

Alaska, 1974.
Unpredictable. Unforgiving. Untamed.
For a family in crisis, the ultimate test of survival.

Ernt Allbright, a former POW, comes home from the Vietnam war a changed and volatile man. When he loses yet another job, he makes an impulsive decision: he will move his family north, to Alaska, where they will live off the grid in America’s last true frontier.

Thirteen-year-old Leni, a girl coming of age in a tumultuous time, caught in the riptide of her parents’ passionate, stormy relationship, dares to hope that a new land will lead to a better future for her family. She is desperate for a place to belong. Her mother, Cora, will do anything and go anywhere for the man she loves, even if it means following him into the unknown.

At first, Alaska seems to be the answer to their prayers. In a wild, remote corner of the state, they find a fiercely independent community of strong men and even stronger women. The long, sunlit days and the generosity of the locals make up for the Allbrights’ lack of preparation and dwindling resources.

But as winter approaches and darkness descends on Alaska, Ernt’s fragile mental state deteriorates and the family begins to fracture. Soon the perils outside pale in comparison to threats from within. In their small cabin, covered in snow, blanketed in eighteen hours of night, Leni and her mother learn the terrible truth: they are on their own. In the wild, there is no one to save them but themselves.

In this unforgettable portrait of human frailty and resilience, Kristin Hannah reveals the indomitable character of the modern American pioneer and the spirit of a vanishing Alaska―a place of incomparable beauty and danger. The Great Alone is a daring, beautiful, stay-up-all-night story about love and loss, the fight for survival, and the wildness that lives in both man and nature.

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Wild by Cheryl Strayed

After losing her mother and watching her life fall apart, Cheryl decides to hike the Pacific Crest Trail alone despite having almost no experience. Along the journey, she struggles physically and emotionally while trying to heal from grief, mistakes, and heartbreak. The writing feels like a friend telling you the truth about rebuilding their life. Wild is inspiring without feeling fake or overly motivational.

At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life. With no experience or training, driven only by blind will, she would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State — and she would do it alone.

Told with suspense and style, sparkling with warmth and humor, Wild powerfully captures the terrors and pleasures of one young woman forging ahead against all odds on a journey that maddened, strengthened, and ultimately healed her.

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We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

We Should All Be Feminists talks about feminism in a very real and approachable way. Chimamanda shares personal stories and examples of how women are treated differently in everyday life, both openly and subtly. The writing is easy to understand even if you’ve never read feminist nonfiction before. It’s the kind of book that makes you stop and notice things you may not have thought about before.

What does “feminism” mean today? That is the question at the heart of We Should All Be Feminists, a personal, eloquently-argued essay—adapted from her much-viewed TEDx talk of the same name—by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the award-winning author of Americanah and Half of a Yellow Sun.

With humor and levity, here Adichie offers readers a unique definition of feminism for the twenty-first century—one rooted in inclusion and awareness. She shines a light not only on blatant discrimination, but also the more insidious, institutional behaviors that marginalize women around the world, in order to help readers of all walks of life better understand the often masked realities of sexual politics. Throughout, she draws extensively on her own experiences—in the U.S., in her native Nigeria, and abroad—offering an artfully nuanced explanation of why the gender divide is harmful for women and men, alike.

Argued in the same observant, witty and clever prose that has made Adichie a bestselling novelist, here is one remarkable author’s exploration of what it means to be a woman today—and an of-the-moment rallying cry for why we should all be feminists.

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Master Your Emotions by Thibaut Meurisse

This is a practical self-help book focused on understanding negative emotions and learning how to manage them better. The author breaks things down in a very simple, direct way. Master Your Emotions talks about habits, mindset shifts, and small ways to stop letting fear, stress, or overthinking control your life. A must read for women who love straightforward self-improvement books with actionable advice.

Have you ever thought…

…about your thoughts?

Do you have a bias toward the negative?

Understanding how negative feelings and emotions work is the first step. Then we must learn how to reprogram those emotions and turn them around. A happier life is possible if you follow the steps.

This program works.

Over 300,000 copies sold.

“It gives me a place to go to that makes me feel better about my present situation and gives me hope for the future.” – Kimberly

“My biggest take away so far (I’m not yet finished with the entire book) is that I am NOT my emotions. Emotions come and I – I still am who I am!” – Itzel

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