Books like The Four Loves

01

Man's Search for Meaning

Viktor E. Frankl · Psychology

Man's Search for Meaning is Viktor Frankl's account of his years as a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps, including Auschwitz, and the psychological theory he developed from that experience.

A kindred philosophy read.

02

Nicomachean Ethics

Aristotle · Philosophy

The Nicomachean Ethics is Aristotle's systematic inquiry into what makes a human life go well.

Both dig into friendship.

03

Meditations

Marcus Aurelius · Philosophy

Meditations is not a book Marcus Aurelius wrote for anyone to read.

A kindred philosophy read.

04

The Perennial Philosophy

Aldous Huxley · Religion & Spirituality

The Perennial Philosophy is Aldous Huxley's anthology and commentary on the mystical traditions of the world, arguing that behind the diversity of religious forms lies a single metaphysical core: the divine ground or ultimate reality is one; the human soul contains a spark of this reality; the purpose of human existence is to realize this identity; and the path to that realization requires ego-transcendence through contemplation, virtue, and love.

A kindred philosophy read.

05

Letters from a Stoic

Seneca · Philosophy

Letters from a Stoic collects a selection of 124 letters that Seneca wrote to his friend Lucilius in the final years of his life, around 65 AD.

Both dig into friendship.

06

Love and Will

Rollo May · Philosophy

Love and Will is Rollo May's attempt to diagnose a civilizational problem: that contemporary Western culture has severed love from will, reducing both to hollow performances.

Both dig into love.

07

The Road Less Traveled

M. Scott Peck · Philosophy

The Road Less Traveled opens with one of the most direct sentences in self-help literature: "Life is difficult." Peck's argument is that this is not a complaint but a liberation — once you genuinely accept that suffering is intrinsic to life rather than a problem to be solved, you stop wasting energy resisting it and can begin the actual work of growth.

Both dig into love.

08

The Symposium

Plato · Philosophy

The Symposium is Plato's dialogue on the nature of love, presented as a series of speeches delivered at a dinner party in Athens around 416 BCE.

Both dig into love.

09

A General Theory of Love

Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini, and Richard Lannon · Psychology

A General Theory of Love is a 2000 book by three psychiatrists at the University of California, San Francisco — Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini, and Richard Lannon — who set out to explain love scientifically without stripping it of its significance.

Both dig into love.

10

A Moveable Feast

Ernest Hemingway · Memoir

A Moveable Feast is Hemingway's posthumously published account of his years in Paris during the 1920s, when he and his first wife Hadley lived cheaply in Montparnasse while he apprenticed himself to the work of becoming a writer.

Both dig into friendship.

11

Just Kids

Patti Smith · Memoir

Just Kids is Patti Smith's National Book Award-winning memoir of her relationship with the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, from their first meeting in New York in 1967 through their years of shared poverty, artistic development, and eventual celebrity, to Mapplethorpe's death from AIDS in 1989.

Both dig into friendship.

12

Lab Girl

Hope Jahren · Memoir

Lab Girl is Hope Jahren's memoir of becoming a scientist, told alongside a parallel account of plant biology that is one of the most original structural decisions in recent nonfiction.

Both dig into friendship.