Pelham Picks: Best Books About Love Crowdsourced by the Pelham Community

February 13, 2022 in Carousel, News

Pelhamites love their library, and they love reading about love. The Friends of the Town of Pelham Public Library put out the call to the community for favorite books for Valentine’s Day, and the recommendations came rolling in, ranging from the old classics (Pride and Prejudice and Beloved) to new masterpieces (Crazy Rich Asians and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo), and celebrating all different kinds of love (The Song of Achilles, The Kissing Hand, and 21 Miles.) Scroll through to see them all, along with the Pelham readers who recommended them, and click the link to be taken to the title in the library’s catalog. Have your own favorite book about love? Share it on social media with the hashtag #lovethelibrary and we’ll add it to the library’s master list of Pelham Picks! To learn more about the Friends and their campaigns, click here.

Books for Adults

About Alice by Calvin Trillin. Recommended by Amy Kerrigan Cole.
All About Love by bell hooks. Recommended by Aimee Kaplan.
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. Recommended by Jonathan Lesser and Erin Blakely Ginsburg.
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. Recommended by Irina Vasilchenko.
The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm. Recommended by Christian Fischer.
Atonement by Ian McEwan. Recommended by Katie Buckley Stevens.
Beloved by Toni Morrison. Recommended by Lisa Robb.
Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller. Recommended by Lori Ann Oliva and Leslie Lisbona Nassiri.
Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier. Recommended by Jay Reynolds.
The Color Purple by Alice Walker. Recommended by Courtney Kress McGrory.
Cooking For Jeffrey by Ina Garten. Recommended by Liz Farrell. “Food = Love. I’ve borrowed a few cookbooks from the library so allow me to also suggest these titles: Dinner: A Love Story by Jenny Rosenstrach and Cooking for Jeffrey by Ina Garten (Barefoot Contessa).” – Liz Farrell
Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan. Recommended by Nicole Kaplan.
Cutting For Stone by Abraham Verghese. Recommended by Megan Reed Yuen, Joanie O’Dwyer Paradis, and Erin Blakely Ginsburg.
Dinner: A Love Story by Jenny Rosenstrach. Recommended by Liz Farrell.
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Dominique Bauby. Recommended by Stephen Byfield, Laura Kalehoff, and Theresa and Nick Breskin.
The End of the Alphabet by C. S. Richardson. Recommended by Emily Venugopal.
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. Recommended by Erin Blakely Ginsburg.
The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman. Recommended by Tisha Clark.
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. Recommended by Erin Blakely Ginsburg.
Green Mansions by W. H. Hudson. Recommended by Janice Gelfand. “I read this 100 times in HS in the late 60s.” – Janice Gelfand
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss. Recommended by Allison Volmer Douglass.
How Moon Fuentez Fell in Love with the Universe by Raquel Vasquez Gilliland. Recommended by Elizabeth Bewley.
If It Was Easy, They’d Call the Whole Damn Thing a Honeymoon by Jenna McCarthy. Recommended by Laura Kalehoff.
In Five Years by Rebecca Serle. Recommended by Jenny Lang Ziemer and Tisha Clark.
Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel. Recommended by Lisa Robb.
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. Recommended by Debra Stern and Tanya D’Agostino. “One of my favorite books of all time. I still think of it and I read it many years ago.” – Tanya D’Agostino
A Little Love Story by Roman Merullo. Recommended by Heather Minsky Schneider.
Love by Toni Morrison. Recommended by Amy Kerrigan Cole.
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Recommended by Irina Vasilchenko and Renee Dorris.
Love, Loss, and What I Wore by Ilene Beckerman. Recommended by Sing Duffy
The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton. Recommended by Paula Wood.
A Man Called Ove by Fredrick Backman. Recommended by Theresa Nick Breskin.
Me Before You by Jojo Moyes. Recommended by Sara Haberman.
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden. Recommended by Pavithra Mandappa.
Middlemarch by George Eliot. Recommended by Paula Wood and Michael Fanuele.
Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare. Recommended by Lauren Casper Gallivan.
My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante. Recommended by Irina Vasilchenko.
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. Recommended by Sara Haberman.
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami. Recommended by Liz Farrell.
The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks. Recommended by Joanie O’Dwyer Paradis.
One Day by David Nicholls. Recommended by Elizabeth Bewley.
One Day in December by Josie Silver. Recommended by Rachel Nelson Cullen.
Persuasion by Jane Austen. Recommended by Denise Delgado-Kerman.
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Recommended by Lynda Elizabeth.
Project Everlasting by Matthew Boggs and Jason Miller. Recommended by Stephanie Bostaph Martin.
The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford. Recommended by Erin Blakely Ginsburg and Irina Vasilchenko.
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Recommended by Nicole Kaplan.
Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen. Recommended by Amanda Stano.
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid. Recommended by Sara Haberman.
Shakespeare’s Sonnets by William Shakespeare. Recommended by Pavithra Mandappa.
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. Recommended by Lisa Robb.
The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. Recommended by Jenny Lang Ziemer.
A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth. Recommended by Melissa Meeker Eustace.
The Submerged Cathedral by Charlotte Wood. Recommended by Linda Collins.
Three Sisters by Heather Morris. Recommended by Karen Janos.
Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins. Recommended by Laurie Ulster.
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. Recommended by Nicole Kaplan.
Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy. Recommended by Lauren Casper Gallivan.
This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz. Recommended by Mirielle Ranade.
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. Recommended by Lucy Varney.
21 Miles by Jessica Hepburn. Recommended by Liza Benner Erario. “21 Miles by Jessica Hepburg – about so many things, love certainly being one of them.” – Liza Benner Erario
Untamed by Glennon Doyle. Recommended by Sara Haberman.
The Wedding Date by Jasmine Guillory. Recommended by Nicole Kaplan.
Wedding Toasts I’ll Never Give by Ada Calhoun. Recommended by Laura Kalehoff.
Why We Love by Helen E. Fisher.
Women of the Otherworld series by Kelley Armstrong. Recommended by Amy Rios.
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. Recommended by Lina Perl, Lauren Casper Gallivan, and Joanne Pacia-Ferrara. “Wuthering Heights is one of my favorites. I tried to push Heathcliff as the name for one of my boys. Didn’t go over.” – Joanne Pacia-Ferrara
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. Recommended by Lisa Robb and Amy Kerrigan Cole.

Books for Children

You Are My I Love You by Maryann Cusimano. Recommended by Laura Kalehoff and Jennifer Pogorelec O’Sullivan. “As a baby gift, You Are My I Love You is a heart-tugger! […] Perfect description of the parent-kid bond!” – Laura Kalehoff
Sloppy Kisses by Elizabeth Winthrop. Recommended by P. Con Cullen.
PS, I LoveYou by Cecelia Ahern. Recommended by Joanie O’Dwyer Paradis.
Mixed: A Colorful Story by Arree Chung. Recommended by Megan Carson Kim and Ravneeta Consul.
Catching Kisses by Amy Gibson. Recommended by Jennifer Collins.
I Love You, Stinky Face by Lisa McCourt. Recommended by Rachel Nelson Cullen.
I’d Know You Anywhere, My Love by Nancy Tillman. Recommended by Megan Carson Kim.
The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn. Recommended by Allison Puglisi Tam and Marjut Turner-Herzog. “I read this to my boys regularly to emphasize to them that even though as a working Mom I may have not always been there with them physically, I was always there because my love was always with them.” – Allison Puglisi Tam; “I used to read it to my kids and cried each time. It’s wonderful.” – Marjut Turner-Herzog.
Love You Forever by Robert Munsch. Recommended by Sonia Dulay Ricci. “Love You Forever by Robert Munsch. Utterly flawless tale of love by a fellow Canadian.” – Sonia Dulay Ricci; “Yes! No matter how many times I read it aloud to the kids, I can’t make it without a dry eye.” – Jamie Porco Guglielmo
Love Monster by Rachel Bright. Recommended by Kathleen Nesi.
Love is You and Me by Monica Sheehan. Recommended by Jennifer Collins.
Love Makes a Family by Sophie Beer. Recommended by Emily Kalish.
Somebody Loves You, Mr. Hatch by Eileen Spinelli. Recommended by Jess Jaffe.