Books for Happiness
Looking for happiness? Try looking in a book!
July 20, 2022
10% Happier
How I Tamed The Voice In My Head, Reduced Stress Without Losing My Edge, And Found Self-Help That Actually Works—a True Story
Dan Harris
The Nightline anchor, who had a nationally televised panic attack on Good Morning America, takes readers on a rollicking ride through the outer reaches of neuroscience to the inner sanctum of network news during which he discovered a way to get happier that is truly achievable.
1000+ Little Things Happy, Successful People Do Differently
Marc Chernoff, Angel Chernoff
Millions of readers turn to Marc and Angel Chernoff for fresh, intimate insights for a fulfilled life. In this pithy and empowering guide, they collect the very best advice they’ve discovered, on topics that include overcoming setbacks, letting go of what’s holding us back, nurturing relationships, finding time for self-care, and cultivating passion in order to achieve our wildest dreams.
Aggressively Happy
A Realist’s Guide To Believing In The Goodness Of Life
Joy Clarkson
This weary world can be ugly, despairing, and cynical. But you don’t have to be. Instead, you can cultivate resilient joy—an act of defiance that will give you peace and delight in times of turmoil, pain, and chaos. In this inspiring read, beloved writer Joy Clarkson leads the way, crafting an audacious case for happiness that will leave you feeling lighter, braver, and wiser. With eloquent truths, humor, and memorable storytelling, Joy offers a philosophy of life that doesn’t make light of the heartbreaks of the world, gives you strategies for a hope-offense, defends goodness, and wards off the paralyzing forces of cynicism.
Brain Wash
Detox Your Mind For Clearer Thinking, Deeper Relationships, And Lasting Happiness
David Perlmutter, Austin Perlmutter
Modern culture is rewiring our brains and damaging our health. We immerse ourselves in foods whenever we want; enter an enticing world of digital media; buy goods and services with voice commands. This life poses serious risks to our physical and mental states, our connections to others, and even to the world at large. The Perlmutters believe our brains are being gravely manipulated, resulting in behaviors that leave us more lonely, anxious, depressed, distrustful, illness-prone, and overweight than ever before. They provide the tools necessary to think more clearly, make better decisions, strengthen bonds with others, and develop healthier habits.
From Strength To Strength
Finding Success, Happiness, And Deep Purpose In The Second Half Of Life
Arthur C Brooks
At the height of his career at the age of 50, Arthur Brooks embarked on a seven-year journey to discover how to transform his future from one of disappointment over waning abilities into an opportunity for progress. From Strength to Strength is the result, a practical roadmap for the rest of your life. Drawing on social science, philosophy, biography, theology, and eastern wisdom, as well as dozens of interviews with everyday men and women, Brooks shows us that true life success is well within our reach. By refocusing on certain priorities and habits that anyone can learn, such as deep wisdom, detachment from empty rewards, connection and service to others, and spiritual progress, we can set ourselves up for increased happiness.
Happiness
A Philosopher’s Guide
Frédéric Lenoir
From the ancient Greeks on—from Aristotle, Plato, and Chuang Tzu to the Buddha, Jesus, and Muhammad; from Voltaire, Spinoza, and Schopenhauer to Kant, Freud, and even modern neuroscientists—Lenoir considers the idea that true and lasting happiness is indeed possible.
Happiness
A History
Darrin M. McMahon
A sweeping intellectual history charts the concept of happiness in human life and explains how this modern belief is the result of a revolution in human expectations since the eighteenth century, when the Enlightenment’s recognition of happiness as a motivating ideal led to its official consecration in the Declaration of Independence and France’s Declaration of the Rights of Man.
Happiness Becomes You
A Guide To Changing Your Life For Good
Tina Turner
Tina is a global icon of hope. And now, with Happiness Becomes You, she shows how anyone can overcome obstacles in life—even transform the impossible to possible—and fulfill our dreams. She shows how we, too, can improve our lives, empowering us with spiritual tools and sage advice to enrich our unique paths. For decades, Tina has shined brightly as an example of someone who can generate hope from nothing, break through all limitations, and achieve success that endures. Drawing on the lessons of her own experiences—rising out of sorrowful lows to stratospheric heights—she illuminates the practical principles of Buddhism and how they have helped her elevate from despair, adversity, and poverty to joy, stability, and prosperity.
Happiness Is A Choice You Make
Lessons From A Year Among The Oldest Old
John Leland
When the award-winning journalist John Leland set out on behalf of The New York Times to meet members of America’s fastest-growing age group, he anticipated learning of challenges, of loneliness, and of the deterioration of body, mind, and quality of life. But the elders he met took him in an entirely different direction. Despite disparate backgrounds and circumstances, they each lived with a surprising lightness and contentment. The reality Leland encountered upended contemporary notions of aging, revealing the late stages of life as unexpectedly rich and the elderly as incomparably wise.
Joy At Work
Organizing Your Professional Life
Marie Kondo, Scott Sonenshein
The workplace is a magnet for clutter and mess. Who hasn’t felt drained by wasteful meetings, disorganized papers, endless emails, and unnecessary tasks? These are the modern-day hazards of working, and they can slowly drain the joy from work, limit our chances of career progress, and undermine our well-being. There is another way. In Joy at Work, bestselling author and Netflix star Marie Kondo and Rice University business professor Scott Sonenshein offer stories, studies, and strategies to help you eliminate clutter and make space for work that really matters. Using the world-renowned KonMari Method and cutting-edge research, Joy at Work will help you overcome the challenges of workplace mess and enjoy the productivity, success, and happiness that come with a tidy desk and mind.
Outer Order, Inner Calm
Declutter & Organize To Make More Room For Happiness
Gretchen Rubin
Gretchen Rubin illuminates one of her key realizations about happiness: For most of us, outer order contributes to inner calm. And for most of us, a rigid, one-size-fits-all solution doesn’t work. In this easy-to-read but hard-to-put-down book, Gretchen Rubin suggests more than 150 short, concrete clutter-clearing ideas so each reader can choose the ones that resonate most. The fact is, when we tailor our approach to suit our own particular challenges and habits, we’re far more likely to be able to create the order that will make our lives happier, healthier, more productive, and more creative. In the context of a happy life, a messy desk or crowded coat closet is a trivial problem—yet Gretchen Rubin has found that getting control of our stuff makes us feel more in control of our lives.
Tame Your Anxiety
Rewiring Your Brain For Happiness
Loretta Graziano Breuning
Learning to calm anxiety is a difficult task after years of responding to your brain’s warning signs for threats. But understanding the mechanisms that launch you into anxious states will help you train your brain to make new connections, new paths to awareness and calm. Tame Your Anxiety shows you how.
The Art Of Making Memories
How To Create And Remember Happy Moments
Meik Wiking
Do you remember your first kiss? The day you graduated? Your favorite vacation? Or the best meal you ever had? Memories are the cornerstones of our identity, shaping who we are, how we act, and how we feel. In his work as a happiness researcher, Meik Wiking has learned that people are happier if they hold a positive, nostalgic view of the past. But how do we make and keep the memories that bring us lasting joy? The Art of Making Memories examines how mental images are made, stored, and recalled in our brains, as well as the “art of letting go”-why we tend to forget certain moments to make room for deeper, more meaningful ones.
The Atlas Of Happiness
The Global Secrets Of How To Be Happy
Helen Russell
A fun, illustrated guide that takes us around the world, discovering the secrets to happiness. Author Helen Russell uncovers the fascinating ways that different nations search for happiness in their lives, and what they can teach us about our own quest for meaning.
The Comfort Book
Matt Haig
Years ago, Matt Haig began writing notes to his future self. These notes were meant as gifts to his future self: offerings of hope to help himself through anything from the darkest periods of his life to a not-so-great day. As time went on, he added new thoughts and stories, and he turned them into The Comfort Book so that everyone could draw on this well of reassurance and encouragement. Each of its short meditations gives a new perspective on life and all of its highs and lows—small islands of hope for anyone looking for a more fulfilling, more uplifting way through life. Incorporating a diverse array of sources from across the world, history, science, and his own experiences, Haig offers warmth and reassurance, reminding us to slow down and appreciate the beauty and unpredictability of existence.
The Happiest Man On Earth
The Beautiful Life Of An Auschwitz Survivor
Eddie Jaku
Eddie Jaku always considered himself a German first, a Jew second. He was proud of his country. But all of that changed on 9 November 1938, when he was beaten, arrested and taken to a concentration camp. Over the next seven years, Eddie faced unimaginable horrors every day, first in Buchenwald, then in Auschwitz, then on the Nazi death march. He lost family, friends, his country. Because he survived, Eddie made the vow to smile every day. He pays tribute to those who were lost by telling his story, sharing his wisdom and living his best possible life. He now believes he is the ‘happiest man on earth.’
The Happiness Project
Or, Why I Spent A Year Trying To Sing In The Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, And Generally Have More Fun.
Gretchen Rubin
In this lively and compelling account, Rubin chronicles her adventures during the twelve months she spent test-driving the wisdom of the ages, current scientific research, and lessons from popular culture about how to be happier. Among other things, she found that novelty and challenge are powerful sources of happiness; that money can help buy happiness, when spent wisely; that outer order contributes to inner calm; and that the very smallest of changes can make the biggest difference.
The Ikigai Journey
A Practical Guide To Finding Happiness And Purpose The Japanese Way
Hector Garcia
Ikigai is the place where our passion (what we love), mission (what we hope to contribute), vocation (the gifts we have to offer the world) and profession (how our passions and talents can become a livelihood) converge, giving us a personal sense of meaning. This book helps you bring together all of these elements so that you can enjoy a balanced life.
The Thank-You Project
Cultivating Happiness One Letter Of Gratitude At A Time
Nancy Davis Kho
Who helped you become the person you are today? And, have you ever thanked them? Approaching a milestone birthday, Kho decided to send thank-you letters to the many people who had influenced her, helped her, and inspired her over the years: family, friends, mentors, teachers, co-workers, even exes. Her recipients always seemed genuinely pleased to read the letters, but Kho never expected the profound and positive effect the process would have on her. Here she shows how to appreciate the formative people in your life, past and present—and perhaps create a lasting increase in your happiness levels.
The Totally Unscientific Study Of The Search For Human Happiness
Paula Poundstone
Is there a secret to happiness? Beloved comedian Paula Poundstone conducts a series of “thoroughly scientific” experiments to find out, offering herself up as a guinea pig and recording her data for the benefit of all humankind. Armed with her unique brand of self-deprecating wit and the scientific method, in each chapter Paula tries out a different get-happy hypothesis. She gets in shape with taekwondo. She drives fast behind the wheel of a Lamborghini. She communes with nature while camping with her daughter. Swing dancing? Meditation? Volunteering? Does any of it bring her happiness? And more important, can the happiness last when she returns to the daily demands of her chaotic life?
Think Like A Monk
Train Your Mind For Peace And Purpose Every Day
Jay Shetty
Instead of attending his college graduation ceremony, Shetty headed to India to become a monk, to meditate every day for four to eight hours, and devote his life to helping others. After three years, one of his teachers told him that he would have more impact on the world if he left the monk’s path to share his experience and wisdom with others. Moving back home to north London, Shetty found his old friends were experiencing tremendous stress, pressure, and unhappiness. He began coaching them on well-being, purpose, and mindfulness. Here he shows readers how we can clear the roadblocks to our potential and power
You Are The Happiness You Seek
Uncovering The Awareness Of Being
Rupert Spira
In this book, Rupert Spira distills the message of all the great religious and spiritual traditions into two essential truths: happiness is the very nature of our self or being, and we share our being with everyone and everything. Drawing on numerous examples from his own experience, Spira demonstrates that to seek lasting happiness through objects, situations and relationships is destined for failure and disappointment, and skillfully guides the reader to recognize that we are already the happiness we seek.