8 Books That Have the Power To Change Your Life
Check out these books to foster courage, hope, and compassion.
Growing up, books were my soul’s sustenance. I read constantly—while walking, eating, riding in the car (wish I could still do that). My grandparents, the precious gems that they were, would purchase carton after carton of Sam’s Club specials like Sweet Valley High, The Baby Sitter’s Club, R.L. Stein, Christopher Pike, Stephen King, Charlotte Bronte, David Copperfield, and Harper Lee, while I devoured them all. I still read every night until I fall asleep, even if just for a few minutes to fill me with vivid descriptions, brilliant imagery, and tales from long ago.
Have you ever read what felt like a supremely brilliant book, one that stays with you, influences your life for the better, and broadens your perspective? The books listed below were such books for me, and I hope that you enjoy them, too.
Here are eight life-affirming books to check out:
- The Unreal and the Real: The Selected Short Stories by Ursula Le Guin
Ursula K. LeGuin’s collection of short stories contains two sections: the “Real” section contains 18 stories, and the “Unreal” section includes 21 stories set in a fictional Eastern European country called Orsinia, as well as numerous stories set in or inspired by Oregon, her home since 1958.
The author displays an uncanny knack and a keen ability for transporting the reader from one place and time to a completely different milieu that is just as interesting and captivating.
Her prose is confident, luminous, fiercely honest, and firmly centered on people as they really are, flawed but with moments of strength and decency.
2. Emotional Intelligence for the Modern Leader: A Guide to Cultivating Effective Leadership and Organizations by Christopher D. Connors.
This engrossing book about emotional intelligence teaches us that success requires more than hard work and good ideas. We need to be able to understand, inspire, and motivate those around us. Emotional Intelligence for the Modern Leader hones your emotional intelligence (EQ), which is the ability to be aware of, control, and express your emotions, as well as handle interpersonal relationships empathetically, and enhance your ability to lead. Source.
Building off proven research, this user-friendly guide teaches the pillars of high-EQ leadership. Whether it’s developing self-awareness or bolstering empathy, discover simple and easy-to-use exercises that you can make use of on your own. You’ll even learn about emotionally intelligent leaders and how they’ve utilized this skill as part of their successes. Source.
This is the best guide to emotional intelligence that I’ve read because Connors writes in a clear, entertaining fashion, leaving you ready to learn more and apply it to your own life. I especially enjoyed the chapter about Resonant Leaders. Hearing about mega-successful entrepreneurs like Sara Blakely, Tyler Perry, Brad Stevens, and Payal Kadakia left me motivated and inspired to forge ahead fearlessly while interjecting presence and passion into my goals and dreams.
3. How to Be a Good Creature: A Memoir in Thirteen Animals by Sy Montgomery
Understanding someone who belongs to another species can be transformative. No one knows this better than author, naturalist, and adventurer Sy Montgomery. To research her books, Sy has traveled the world and encountered some of the planet’s rarest and most beautiful animals. From tarantulas to tigers, Montgomery’s life continually intersects with and is informed by the creatures that she meets.
This restorative memoir reflects on the personalities and quirks of 13 animals — Montgomery’s friends — and the truths revealed by their grace. It also explores vast themes: the otherness and sameness of people and animals; the various ways that we learn to love and become empathetic; how we find our passion; how we create our families; coping with loss and despair; gratitude; forgiveness; and most of all, how to be a good creature in the world.
Oh, how this book spoke to my heart. As an animal advocate, rescuer, rehabilitator, and just plain old animal lover, I devoured this book with it’s short yet beautiful tales of the author’s encounters with the animal kingdom. I plan on writing my own version of this someday.
4. Make Money on Medium: Build Your Audience and Grow Your Income with Medium.com by Nicole Akers.
If you're a Medium writer, you need to read this book. Seriously, it should be required reading for the platform. It explains and demystifies Medium’s processes while instructing on how to make money by doing what we love — writing, without feeling sleazy.
It also teaches the reader:
- How to craft your profile to get attention
- How to get people to read what you’ve written
- How to format your stories for outstanding readership
- How to get your first followers (and keep them forever!)
- How to find publications and how to treat them right
- What are tags and how to use them in a smart way
- How to make money with the Medium Partner Program
- How to read stats and understand what they mean
- How to promote your work effectively Source.
I enjoyed and appreciated the detailed history of Medium. I understood the platform and its founding roots better after reading this book—and appreciated the slogan, “Like a blog, but better.” The breadth of knowledge presented by Akers is not only practical and effective, but it’s also told in a captivating style that leaves the reader entertained and informed. The winning piece of advice: “Write stories that offer value and publish them consistently. Write stories that matter.”
5. Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids: How to Stop Yelling and Start Connecting by Laura Markham
Based on the latest research on brain development and extensive clinical experience with parents, Dr. Laura Markham’s approach is as simple as it is effective. Her message is that building an emotional connection with your child creates real and lasting change. When you have that vital connection, you don’t need to threaten, nag, plead, bribe, or even punish.
This remarkable guide will help parents better understand their own emotions — and get them in check — so that they can parent with healthy limits, empathy, and clear communication in order to raise a self-disciplined child. Step-by-step examples give solutions and kid-tested phrasing for parents of toddlers through the elementary years. Source.
As my son has grown, I’ve read the applicable chapter and action guide for his age, and it helps me to understand where he is coming from and how to better connect. A bonus is that the book starts off with a chapter detailing how to deal with your own trauma as a parent to become the parent that you’ve always wanted to be. I love the book’s gentle and practical advice, such as “You Can Nurture Yourself While Raising Your Child.”
Quick aside: You don’t have to be a “yeller” to enjoy this book. I’m not but still found great value and wisdom in chapters such as: “Breaking the cycle, how to heal your own wounds,” and “How to raise a child who can manage himself.” It’s a great guide to emotional intelligence for both parent and child.
6. Einstein’s Dreams by Alan Lightman
A modern classic, Einstein’s Dreams is a fictional collage of stories dreamed by Albert Einstein in 1905, about time, relativity and physics. As the defiant but sensitive young genius is creating his theory of relativity, a new conception of time, he imagines many possible worlds. In one, time is circular, so that people are fated to repeat triumphs and failures over and over. In another, there is a place where time stands still, visited by lovers and parents clinging to their children. In another, time is a nightingale, sometimes trapped by a bell jar. Source.
I love this book because it’s full of dilemmas and paradoxes; in fact, the book itself is a paradox, in that it’s so little and light, but contains a vast amount of insight into human existence.
7. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
Marcus Aurelius was Emperor of Rome from 161 to 180 AD. He governed over a golden era of the Roman Empire. Despite being an emperor, Marcus had a difficult life. He ruled as a philosopher king, practiced Stoicism, and wrote about his own Stoic practice in his journals. Meditations is considered one of the pillars of western philosophy and literature. It is also a rare primary source into the mind of a man who ruled over one of the greatest empires built by man. Source.
In many important ways, the reflections of Marcus Aurelius (121–180) crystallize the philosophical wisdom of the Greco-Roman world. This little book was written as a diary to himself while emperor, only today being referred to as Meditations.
This is one of the greatest of all works of philosophy. It is definitively a timeless collection that has been consulted and admired by thinkers and readers throughout the centuries.
8. Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl
Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl’s memoir has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival. Based on his own experience and the stories of his patients, Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose. At the heart of his theory, known as logotherapy, is a conviction that the primary human drive is not pleasure but the pursuit of what we find meaningful. Man’s Search for Meaning has become one of the most influential books in America; it continues to inspire us all to find significance in the very act of living. Source.
I’ve read this book four times and keep going back to it because of the deeply profound philosophy within. Every time that I read it, I am saddened that I cannot send the author a humble note of thanks for writing what I consider to be one of the best explorations of philosophy known to humankind.
Frankl addresses fundamental questions such as, “What is it that makes life worth living? Is it the pursuit of happiness? Attaining success? What are we actually living for?”
Man’s Search for Meaning was a transformative and life-affirming read. Brimming with illuminating insights, Frankl explores, analyses, and shares his harrowing experiences in a concentration camp during Hitler’s reign. More than that, he delves into the numerous ways in which he sees suffering and pain as a part of life. By employing logotherapy, he shows us how to discover meaning in our lives by creating a work or doing a deed; by experiencing something or encountering someone; and by the attitude that we take toward unavoidable suffering.
This list contains books that changed my life and allowed me to see the world in new and different ways. It provided me different perspectives, but the goal is not to live like someone. You must find a lifestyle and work that only you can do in a meaningful and fulfilling way.
The ideas in these books allowed me to see myself and the world the way it is. And they helped me become a more knowledgeable, confident, open-minded, and interesting person.
Seeking knowledge and understanding things that you never understood is the most exciting thing in the world.
“A great library is freedom.”—Ursula K. Le Guin