Whether you are engaged to be married, a newly wed, or have been married for many years, there are excellent books to read that can provide knowledge to enhance your marriage. While a book cannot take the place of pre-marital counseling or marriage counseling, they can be great tools to strengthen your marriage. Even for strong marriages, reading good marriage books can be advantageous.
Before rendering book recommendations, I would caution that in selecting any book on marriage that it must meet two criteria in order to be worthwhile. First it must take a Christ centered view of marriage for it is a strand of three cords that is not easily broken. God must be central in our marriage covenant and the marriage books we digest must be of this nature. Secondly, the author must speak in support of the life of the marriage. Thus the book must be pro-marriage and pro-family or there isn't any use reading it.
In keeping with this standard, I have several books to recommend. The first is "The Five Love Languages" by Gary Chapman. This book provides a unique and practical analysis of how we show love to each other. Chapman explains how to identify one's love language and the love language of their spouse. For instance, if gift giving is a huge sign to a person that they are loved then they often times will give gifts to show their love. However, their spouse's love language may be words of affirmation and the gifts are not communicating love to them. Chapman helps to alleviate this confusion and teaches how to learn how to speak our spouses love language.
Secondly, I recommend, especially for newly weds, or engaged couples the book "The Most Important Year in a Woman's Life/The Most Important Year in a Man's Life" by Wolgemuth and Devries. This book is a fun read. One half of the book is written to the woman and the other half is written to the man. However, the book has to be flipped upside down and opened from the opposite side respectively. The couple meets in the middle to find a questionnaire to aid discussion of what they have read and how to apply it to their lives. This book covers a variety of topics relating to marriage including resolving conflict, intimacy, in laws, communication, roles, etc.
Next, I suggest the book "Love and Respect" by Emerson Eggerichs. This book delves deep into the heart of most conflicts between a husband and wife. The wife's greatest heart need is to feel loved by her husband and the husband's greatest heart cry is to feel respected by his wife. Eggerichs provides a biblical framework for this paradigm of the necessity of love and respect in a marriage. He speaks of a cycle of turmoil that is created when these needs are not understood and met which can be broken when the concept is grasped and walked out.
Lastly, I highly recommend "Sacred Marriage: What If God Designed Marriage to Make us Holy More than to Make us Happy" by Gary Thomas. Thomas eloquently discusses the truths of holy matrimony. Thomas said that in the past the Church saw celibacy as holier than marriage, but in reality marriage is a holy sacrament and can work things out of our hearts in a way singleness cannot. Marriage is a life long covenant relationship that will undergo hardships and trials. So many leave marriages because they were looking to their spouse for their ultimate happiness and when their spouse doesn't deliver they go in search of another to make them happy. God has to be the ultimate source of happiness and when one spouse places unrealistic expectations on another to be their source of ultimate happiness they will fail to live up every time. But when our eyes are on the sustainer of our souls we can work through the hard times of marriage along side our spouse in covenant. Thomas adeptly presented a case for the sacredness of matrimony sharing many encouraging testimonies to illustrate his points.
These four books ought to provide excellent resources for a strong healthy marriage. Moreover, I recommend the film Fireproof and the corresponding book The Love Dare for marriages that need a refreshment. All of these should be available at your local Christian book store. Marriage is worth investing the money and time into reading good books, attending marriage conferences, and seeking marriage counseling when needed. Also, married people ought to surround themselves with friends who have stable marriages and who support marriage. One can never do too much to safeguard their marriage; it is a valuable relationship that needs protecting on all fronts.