Written by Kashish Makker
We all have books that change our perspectives and add some value or insight to our lives. If you’re looking for books that will make you think or will help you make changes in your life, browse through some of our recommendations.
Spiritual/ Religious Literature
Journey to the Heart by Melody Beattie
Journey to the Heart will inspire all of us to find our real meaning in the universe and learn to communicate with ourselves, the creative force, and the beauty and wonder around and beyond us in the world even more profoundly.
“Talk to the universe. Ask it for help.
Then listen to your heart. Because that
quiet voice, the one in your heart, is
how the universe talks to you.”
Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
A day-to-day life manual highlighting the importance of living in the current moment and transcending past or future feelings.
“It is not uncommon for people to spend their whole life waiting to start living.”
Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman
The book outlines five general ways in which loving couples express and feel love, dubbed “love languages” by Chapman.
“Most of us have more potential than we will ever develop. What holds us back is often a lack of courage.”
Self Help
48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene
It provides a series of 48 laws that teach people how to obtain power, retain it, and protect themselves from those influential people who make their lives miserable.
“When you show yourself to the world and display your talents, you naturally stir all kinds of resentment, envy, and other manifestations of insecurity… you cannot spend your life worrying about the petty feelings of others”
The Healing Self by Deepak Chopra and Rudolph Tanzi
Chopra and Tanzi talk about how even the most severe mental diseases can be prevented if some adjustments in our lifestyles – from diet to relationships – and the wackiest religious practices can have positive impacts on your well-being.
“Don’t focus on age,” she says with a touch of impatience. “It doesn’t exist.”
Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find — and Keep — Love by Amir Levine and Rachel S. F. Heller
A realistic relationship book that aims to help you appreciate the science of adult attachment to discover and sustain love.
“True love, in the evolutionary sense, means peace of mind. “Still waters run deep” is a good way of characterizing it.”
You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay
The book’s main implication is that since the mind and body are linked, body ailments somehow find their root causes in the mind’s mental and moral aspects and its values and thinking processes.
“Think thoughts that make you happy. Do things that make you feel good. Be with people who make you feel good. Eat things that make your body feel good. Go at a pace that makes you feel good.”
I’m Okay You’re Okay by Thomas Anthony Harris
As a tool for addressing challenges of life, it is a practical guide to transactional analysis.
“human behaviour lie not only in the past but in man’s ability to contemplate the future, or estimate probabilities:”
Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz with Janet Mills
It provides a code of conduct based on ancient Toltec wisdom that encourages liberation from self-limiting convictions that can lead to misery and limitation in the life of an individual.
“There is a huge amount of freedom that comes to you when you take nothing personally.”
Grit the Power of Perseverance and Patience by Angela Duckworth
Angela Duckworth teaches everyone who aims to excel, whether parents, teenagers, coaches, athletes, or business executives, that the path to outstanding success is not talent, but a special combination of passion and determination that she calls “grit.”
“Without effort, your talent is nothing more than unmet potential. Without effort, your skill is nothing more than what you could have done but didn’t.”
The Secret by Rhonda Byrne
It is based on the concept of the rule of attraction, which argues that thoughts will directly affect the life of an individual.
The truth is that the universe has been answering you all of your life, but you cannot receive the answers unless you are awake.
Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert
A manual with common aspirations that sounds purely unique, a crash course in the extremely productive individual’s mental habits.
“What do you love doing so much that the words failure and success essentially become irrelevant?”
Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss
For all those tired of postponing their lives before retirement, who instead want to live life big and in the moment, right now, Tim Ferriss wrote ‘The 4-Hour Work Week.’ Ferriss offers a way to get all the perks of working without having to wait for the end of your career in The 4-Hour Work Week.
“What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do.”
Eight Keys to Building Your Best Relationship by Daniel A. Hughes
The book describes how there is a shift in how we understand the essence of relationships, how we evolve in those relationships, and how our brains work in connection with others synergistically.
“But in life people come and go. We don’t always have control over it. But we can control how we respond. We can keep going, keep living the best we can. We can love the people we have instead of shutting them out. We can do our best to get to know them in the time we have.”
The One Thing by Gary W. Keller and Jay Papasan
The book explores the importance of simplifying one’s workload by concentrating on the most critical task of any project.
“Don’t let small thinking cut your life down to size. Think big, aim high, act bold. And see just how big you can blow up your life.”
The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself by Michael Alan Singer
Each chapter of The Untethered Soul is an instructive meditation on the human condition’s bindings and how to gracefully untie each and every knot so that our souls can soar.
“There is nothing more important to true growth than realizing that you are not the voice of the mind – you are the one who hears it.”
A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose by Eckhart Tolle
Encourages its readers to live their life without stressing worldly things at the present moment and to create peace for themselves.
“Don’t Seek Happiness. If you seek it, you won’t find it, because seeking is the antithesis of happiness”
How To Heal Yourself When No One Else Can by Amy B. Scher
How to Heal Yourself When No One Else Can teaches you by caring, respecting, and being yourself no matter what, how to attain full and lasting healing.
“Surrender does not mean giving up; It’s simply releasing the energy of struggle and deciding to heal instead of fight.”
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain
Cain claims that the qualities and skills of introverted people are ignored and undervalued by modern Western society, leading to “a colossal waste of talent, energy, and happiness.”
“We don’t need giant personalities to transform companies. We need leaders who build not their own egos but the institutions they run.”
Fiction
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
A stunning tale set against the tumultuous events of the last thirty years of Afghanistan — from the Soviet invasion to the Taliban’s rule to the post-Taliban reconstruction — that puts this country’s violence, terror, hope, and trust in personal, human terms.
“One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs,
Or the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls.”
Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
It is the story of Amir, a Sunni Muslim, who is trying to find his place in the world due to the impact and consequences of a series of stressful childhood events.
“And that’s the thing about people who mean everything they say. They think everyone else does too.”
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
It is Yaa Gyasi’s debut historical fiction book, released in 2016. A different descendant of an Asante woman called Maame accompanies each chapter in the book.
“You want to know what weakness is? Weakness is treating someone as though they belong to you. Strength is knowing that everyone belongs to themselves.”
The Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts
Shantaram is Gregory David Roberts’ 2003 book, in which a jailed Australian bank thief and drug addict escapes and flees to India from Pentridge Prison.
“Some feelings sink so deep into the heart that only loneliness can help you find them again. Some truths are so painful that only shame can help you live with them. Some things are so sad that only your soul can do the crying for them.”
Humour
I’m Judging You by Luvvie Ajayi
It is her debut book of satirical essays that, in our newly global, linked lives, dissects our cultural obsessions and points out bad behaviour.
Sci- Fi/ Fantasy
The Power by Naomi Alderman
The core idea is the willingness of women to emit electrical jolts from their fingertips, causing them to become the dominant gender.
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
The magical tale of Santiago, a shepherd boy from Andalusia who yearns to journey in search of a worldly treasure as lavish as any he has ever found.
Personal Finance
Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey
It teaches you how to avoid embracing debt as usual, eradicate it in tiny amounts forever, and create in seven steps the financial future you deserve.
I Will Teach You to be Rich by Ramit Sethi
It teaches you how to avoid embracing debt as usual, eradicate it in tiny amounts forever, and create in seven steps the financial future you deserve.
Diet
Fit Gurl: Introducing the Turnaround, a Full-Body Training Program Guaranteed to Get You in the Best Shape of Your Life by Mel Alcantara
She is a personal trainer and competitor who works for Kim Kardashian as a personal trainer and adds no-nonsense diet and exercise knowledge to Kim’s website, kimkardashianwest.com, and the KKW app on a daily basis. Melissa began training for bodybuilding contests after losing 40 pounds in 60 days and finding she had complete control of her mind and body, and posted her fitness journey on Instagram. She has been featured in Women’s Wellness, Cosmopolitan, Vogue, and many more.
Autobiography/ Biography
Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand In the Sun and Be Your Own Person by Shonda Rhimes
Shonda Rhimes reveals how saying YES changed her life – and how it can change yours, too.
Obstacles Welcome: How to Turn Adversity Into Advantage in Business and in Life by Paul B. Brown and Ralph de la Vega
It offers tips on how to prevent one of the most catastrophic mistakes people make while studying, sometimes forgetting to unlearn the facts they have learned that are no longer true.
Untamed by Glennon Doyle
Untamed is a personal memoir as well as a galvanizing invitation to wake-up. It is the story of how a woman has discovered that a caring mother is not one who dies for her children painfully, but one who teaches them how to live entirely.
“When a woman finally learns that pleasing the world is impossible, she becomes free to learn how to please herself.”
Many Lives Many Masters by Brian Weiss
Weiss shares Catherine’s life story, her many encounters, her remarkable counseling sessions, and the vision of the human spirit and soul she has uncovered.
“Inner peace is impossible without patience. Wisdom requires patience. Spiritual growth implies the mastery of patience. Patience allows the unfolding of destiny to proceed at its won unhurried pace.”
How to Change your Mind by Michael Pollan
Michael Pollan writes experiments with psychedelic substances such as LSD and psilocybin from his own consciousness-expanding, and he makes the case that breaking up the old routines of the brain may be therapeutic for people experiencing addiction, illness, or death.
“Normal waking consciousness feels perfectly transparent, and yet it is less a window on reality than the product of our imaginations-a kind of controlled hallucination.”
Educated by Tara Westover
In it, in order to go to college, Westover recounts overcoming her survivalist Mormon relatives, and stresses the value of education in widening her life.
A Million Little Pieces by James Frey
It reveals the story of a 23-year-old addict and substance addict and how he is coping with recovery in a 12-step facility-oriented treatment
Non-fiction
Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
To answer to what it means to be human, Yuval Noah Harari weaves perspectives from science and the humanities together.
Our Inner Ape by Frans de Waal
Frans de Waal introduces the controversial notion that our most admirable virtues are as much a part of our nature as our lower impulses, generosity, goodness, altruism.
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