A good book at the right moment can shift the direction of a life. The 60 books below are the ones we’ve watched do exactly that for women in our community.
This list was curated by the team at Soul Full Events, a women’s wellness community based in Ontario. It includes books we’ve read, recommended at retreats, gifted to friends, and watched ripple through the lives of the women we know. Some are well-known. Some deserve to be. All have been chosen because they speak directly to what women are actually navigating, not the airbrushed version sold elsewhere
Browse by what you’re walking through. Bookmark a few. Borrow from your library if budget is tight. The right book will find you when you’re ready for it.
by Glennon Doyle
A memoir-meets-manifesto about the moment Glennon stopped trying to be the woman she was told to be. For women who have felt the quiet pull to leave a version of their life behind.
by Brené Brown
Brené’s foundational book on wholehearted living. For women who have been performing their way through life and are ready to stop.
by Elizabeth Gilbert
A book about creative living, but really about the courage to make things and live truthfully. For women who have been waiting for permission to begin something.
by Brené Brown
A deep map of human emotions, what they actually are, and how to name them. For women who have lost the words for what they feel.
by Julia Cameron
A twelve-week program that has unblocked more women than almost any other book. For women who lost their creative self somewhere along the way.
by Louise Hay
A foundational text in the personal development canon. For women exploring the relationship between thought patterns and physical and emotional wellbeing.
by Dr. Bessel van der Kolk
The definitive book on how trauma lives in the body and how it can be released. Foundational reading for any woman doing healing work.
by Dr. Bruce Perry and Oprah Winfrey
A conversation between a neuroscientist and Oprah on how childhood experiences shape adult lives. Compassionate and accessible.
by Nedra Glover Tawwab
A practical, deeply useful guide to healing patterns and protecting your peace. For women who give too much.
by Kelly McDaniel
For women whose mothers were unable to fully attune to them. Names the wound and offers a path forward.
by Dr. Gabor Maté
On the connection between stress, repressed emotion, and disease. For women who have been holding too much for too long.
by Peter Levine
A somatic approach to healing trauma. Accessible and deeply hopeful, especially for women whose healing journey is in its early stages.
by Emily and Amelia Nagoski
Science-backed, women-specific, and refreshingly practical. The book to read if you’re suspecting you might be burned out.
by Tricia Hersey
A radical reframe of rest as a form of liberation. For women who feel guilty resting.
by Celeste Headlee
A historical and cultural look at how Americans became addicted to productivity and how to reclaim a fuller life.
by Pooja Lakshmin, MD
A psychiatrist’s take on why bubble-bath self-care fails women and what actually works.
by Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith
Identifies seven types of rest and explains why sleep alone isn’t enough. For women who are tired in ways they can’t explain.
by John Mark Comer
A spiritual and practical case for slowing down. For women whose calendar has become an enemy of their wellbeing.
by Brianna Wiest
A short, dense book on self-sabotage and self-actualization. Highly underlined by the women in our community.
by Jen Sincero
Sharp, funny, and direct. For women who want a kick more than a hug.
by Tara Brach
A Buddhist psychologist’s guide to embracing yourself exactly as you are. Quietly transformative.
by Shannon Kaiser
A gentle step-by-step approach to rebuilding your relationship with yourself. For women in recovery from perfectionism.
by Kamal Ravikant
A short, uncomfortable book about what happens when you actually commit to treating yourself well. Often dismissed, then deeply felt.
by Jordan Lee Dooley
For women navigating comparison, purpose, and the gap between who they are and who they thought they’d be by now.
by Nedra Glover Tawwab
The modern classic on this topic. Practical scripts and frameworks.
by Nedra Glover Tawwab
Specifically about family dynamics and dysfunctional relationships.
by Harriet Braiker
An older but enduring book on the cost of chronic people-pleasing.
by Dr. Aziz Gazipura
On the exhaustion of trying to manage everyone else’s emotions. More direct than most books on this topic.
by Jancee Dunn
A funny, candid look at perimenopause and midlife.
by Dr. Christiane Northrup
A more clinical, comprehensive guide to the physical and emotional shifts of midlife.
by Katherine May
A gentle book on rest, retreat, and the seasons of life when we need to slow down.
by David Brooks
On the shift from achievement to meaning that often arrives in midlife. For women who are questioning everything they built in the first half.
by Dr. Shefali Tsabary
For mothers ready to look at how their own healing shapes their parenting.
by Dr. Becky Kennedy
A modern, compassionate approach to parenting and rebuilding self-trust as a mother.
by Jennifer Senior
A clear-eyed look at the paradox of modern parenting.
by Lisa Damour
A guide to understanding girls from adolescence to adulthood. Essential for mothers of daughters.
by Tara Mohr
The book on the inner game of women’s leadership. The chapter on the inner critic alone is worth the price.
by Rachel Rodgers
Direct, bold, and necessary for women navigating money and ambition.
by Brené Brown
On vulnerability and courage in leadership. For women who lead people and feel the weight of that responsibility.
by Sheryl Sandberg
Still worth reading as a document of a moment in women’s leadership thinking, even where you might disagree with it.
by Clarissa Pinkola Estés
A modern classic. Mythology, story, and the wild feminine. Not a quick read. A life read.
by Michael A. Singer
On freeing yourself from the chatter of your own mind. A quiet, direct, deeply useful book for women in recovery from overthinking.
by Toko-pa Turner
For women feeling exiled from themselves or their lives. A lyrical and deeply felt book about finding your way back.
by Marianne Williamson
A spiritual guide grounded in A Course in Miracles. For women open to a love-based framework for navigating life’s difficulties.
by Tara Westover
A memoir of education, family, and the cost of becoming yourself.
by Cheryl Strayed
The hike that became a reckoning. About grief, motherhood, and reclamation.
by Joan Didion
On grief, loss, and the year that follows the unthinkable.
by Michelle Zauner
A memoir about her mother, identity, food, and grief.
by Susan Cain
A meditation on melancholy, longing, and the beauty of sad-but-beautiful feelings.
by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Indigenous wisdom, botany, and the relationship between humans and the land. Not self-help, but profoundly healing.
by Sy Montgomery
A surprising book about consciousness, connection, and what we don’t yet understand. For women who want to read something that opens them without telling them how.
by Ibram X. Kendi
A personal and intellectual journey that changes how you see yourself and the world. Transformative without the self-help packaging.
Most women buy more books than they read. The pile grows.
Here’s how to actuallylet these books change you.
Cycling through five books at once means none of them lands. Pick one. Live with it.
A clean book is a forgotten book. Mark it up. Argue with it. Make it yours.
The temptation is to keep reading. Don’t. When a sentence stops you, close the book for a minute. Let it move through you.
With a friend, in a book club, in a journal. Reading without integration is consumption. Talking about a book is what makes it part of you.
Reading should not be an obligation. If you’re 50 pages in and bored or struggling, put it down without guilt. The right book at the wrong time is still the wrong book.
A book you read at 30 is a different book when you reread it at 40. Some of the most important reading happens the second time.
Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily and Amelia Nagoski is the most direct, practical, and women-specific book on the topic. Real Self-Care by Pooja Lakshmin and Rest Is Resistance by Tricia Hersey are excellent companion reads.
In midlife, women often benefit from books that name the season honestly. Hot and Bothered by Jancee Dunn, Wintering by Katherine May, and Untamed by Glennon Doyle are common entry points. For the spiritual dimension, Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés is foundational.
Set Boundaries, Find Peace by Nedra Glover Tawwab, Wild by Cheryl Strayed, and The Body Keeps the Score by Dr. Bessel van der Kolk are commonly cited by women navigating that season. For lighter, narrative healing, Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert still holds up.
Try memoir, narrative nonfiction, or literary works that explore inner life. Braiding Sweetgrass, Bittersweet, Wild, and Crying in H Mart are all transformative without being labeled self-help.
Yes. Many of the books listed are written by Canadian or Canadian-connected women, including Glennon Doyle (who has Canadian roots), and we recommend exploring Canadian authors like Esi Edugyan, Lisa Moore, and others for fiction and memoir.
Your local library is the most underused resource available to women. Library cards are free in most parts of Ontario and Canada. Most libraries also offer ebook and audiobook lending through apps like Libby. There’s no need to buy any book on this list to read it.
You can read every book on this list and still find yourself stuck in the same patterns. Books open the door. What you do with what you’ve read is the work.
At Soul Full Events, our retreats, camps, and online Collective give women across Ontario a place to actually live what they’ve been reading. The conversations. The reflection. The community of women doing the same work. That’s what makes the ideas in these books become a life.
