Shelf Life: Glennon Doyle

Welcome to Shelf Life, ELLE.com’s books column, in which authors share their most memorable reads. Whether you’re on the hunt for a book to console you, move you profoundly, or make you laugh, consider a recommendation from the writers in our series, who, like you (since you’re here), love books. Perhaps one of their favorite titles will become one of yours, too.

Rooms that lack books, Glennon Doyle has said, give her a “panicky” feeling. That tracks for someone like Doyle, herself a bestselling author, whose latest book, We Can Do Hard Things, is out now. Sharing the same name as her popular podcast, the work of nonfiction is co-written with her fellow hosts: wife Abby Wambach (also an author) and sister Amanda Doyle. Described as a guidebook to “life’s 20 questions,” it features words of wisdom from such podcast guests and friends as Ashley C. Ford, Ina Garten, Roxane Gay, Elizabeth Gilbert, and Ocean Vuong, among others. Doyle’s previous books include Untamed (which was optioned by J.J. Abrams’s Bad Robot; Doyle herself will be played by Sarah Paulson); Love, Warrior; and Carry On, Warrior. She also founded media company Treat Media and nonprofit Together Rising, which has donated $55 million to women, families, and children in crisis.

The Virginia-born and -raised, California-based author is a self-described introvert; was raised by teachers and started her own career as a third-grade teacher; thought she was a Pisces for 20 years (she’s actually an Aries); played lacrosse and viola in high school; majored in English at James Madison University; did a Ted Talk (“Lessons from the Mental Hospital”) that has been viewed more than 6 million times; has three kids and two dogs; writes the newsletter A Little Treat; and executive produced the documentary Come See Me in the Good Light, which won the Sundance Festival Favorite Award and will air on AppleTV+ this fall.

Likes: Blankets; documentary films; Nacho Doritos; paint; practical joke videos; trash TV; Indigo Girls; taking a walk; truth-telling.

Dislikes: Tight clothes; meanness; dying flowers; setting an alarm; saying “never”; loading the dishwasher.

Dream job: Poet

Word she’s coined: “Brutiful,” as in life is brutal and beautiful

Comfort food: Licorice

Scroll through her book recommendations below.

The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai.

Just Kids by Patti Smith.

Like Family by Erin O. White.

The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine by Rashid Khalidi.

Full of Myself by Austin Channing Brown and Disappoint Me by Nicola Dinan.

All the Way to the River by Elizabeth Gilbert.

The Girl Who Baptized Herself by Meggan Watterson.

You Better be Lightning by Andrea Gibson.

The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden.

South to America by Imani Perry and One Drop by Dr. Yaba Blay.

The Writing Life by Annie Dillard.

Now 42% Off

Now 42% Off

Now 30% Off

Now 30% Off

Now 33% Off

Now 50% Off

Now 29% Off