My favorite divorce books 

When my marriage broke up the first thing I did was surf Amazon looking for books on divorce. I also asked divorced friends for recommendations. Here are the books that made a real difference in my life:

Crazy Time; Surviving Divorce and Building a New Life by Abigail Trafford.

Crazy Time is my bible of divorce. It refers to that period after separation or divorce when you aren’t yourself, when you do crazy things you never thought were possible. My view of myself and my marriage was totally changed by this book. Trafford explains that marriages fail when the power balance between the spouses changes. She writes compellingly with great insight, but in a chatty style with a lot of anecdotes. If you can’t understand what went wrong in your marriage, and want to prevent the same thing happening again, this is the book for you.

Broken Open; How Difficult Times can Help Us Grow by Elizabeth Lesser

Lesser uses her own life story, and those of others, to explore what she calls the "Phoenix Process," or how positive life change that can emerge from very difficult life events. She cites stories of those who have gone through a divorce (as she has), lost a child or suffered a terminal illness. She brings in thinkers such as Tibetan Buddhist Pema Chodron, the late philosopher Joseph Campbell and Ram Dass to illustrate how meditation and belief in a spirit that works through people can help break through fear and hopelessness. I was transformed by this book—which gave me hope that I too could change through the “crucible” (as she calls it) of divorce. The book gave shape and meaning to what I was going through.