The Winter Solstice is the perfect time for reinvention—and more reading! So we've compiled a list of our top ten non-fiction for you - from saying 'yes' to learning mindfulness, these books are bound to spark inspiration for the rest of the year.
By Martha Beck
Martha draws on her experience as a life coach, her love of nature and understanding of animals (and the African wilderness in particular), and the awareness, concerns and needs of huge numbers of people today - the team. She focuses on four states we need to explore - Wordlessness, Oneness, Inspiration and Creation. She presents basic skills for healing your own emotional wounds and physical infirmities in order to access a part of you that is capable of healing others.
By Rebecca Solnit
With Hope in the Dark, Rebecca Solnit makes a radical case for hope as a commitment to act in a world whose future remains uncertain and unknowable. Drawing on her decades of activism and a wide reading of environmental, cultural, and political history, Solnit argued that radicals have a long, neglected history of transformative victories, that the positive consequences of our acts are not always immediately seen, directly knowable, or even measurable, and that pessimism and despair rest on an unwarranted confidence about what is going to happen next.
By Shonda Rhimes
Profound, impassioned and laugh-out-loud funny, in Year of Yes Shonda Rhimes reveals how saying YES changed - and saved - her life. And inspires readers everywhere to change their own lives with one little word: Yes.
By Lisa Congdon
A quote book like no other, this thought-provoking collection compiles the timeless wisdom of great original minds— from Marie Curie to Stephen King, Joan of Arc to Jack Kerouac, Oscar Wilde to Harriet Tubman—brilliantly hand-lettered by beloved indie artist Lisa Congdon.
By Miguel Ruiz
Miguel Ruiz reveals the source of self-limiting beliefs that rob us of joy and create needless suffering. Based on ancient Toltec wisdom, The Four Agreements offer a powerful code of conduct that can rapidly transform our lives to a new experience of freedom, true happiness, and love.
By Anna Akana
From Internet sensation Anna Akana comes a candid and poignant collection of essays about love, loss, and chasing adulthood. In 2007, Anna Akana lost her teen sister, Kristina, to suicide. In the months that followed, she realized that the one thing helping her process her grief and begin to heal was comedy. So she began making YouTube videos as a form of creative expression and as a way to connect with others.
By Brene Brown
The physics of vulnerability is simple: If we are brave enough often enough, we will fall. This is a book about what it takes to get back up and how owning our stories of disappointment, failure, and heartbreak gives us the power to write a daring new ending. Struggle can be our greatest call to courage and Rising Strong, our clearest path to deeper meaning, wisdom and hope.
By James Clear
In this ground-breaking book, Clears reveals exactly how these minuscule changes can grow into such life-altering outcomes. He uncovers a handful of simple life hacks (the forgotten art of habit stacking, the unexpected power of the two minute rule, or the trick to entering the goldilocks zone), and delves into cutting-edge psychology and neuroscience to explain why they matter. Along the way, he tells inspiring stories of Olympic gold medallists, leading CEOs, and distinguished scientists who have used the science of tiny habits to stay productive, motivated, and happy.
By Gretchen Rubin
Gretchen Rubin she set out on a year-long quest to learn how to better enjoy the life she already had. Each month, Gretchen pursued a different set of resolutions--go to sleep earlier, tackle a nagging task, bring people together, take time to be silly. She read everything from classical philosophy to cutting-edge scientific studies, from Winston Churchill to Oprah, developing her own definition of happiness and a plan for how to achieve it.
Please note: This book is currently on order and is not available to borrow currently. Should you like to reserve it, please let one of our friendly librarians know: 03 433 0850
On Looking begins with inattention. It is about attending to the joys of the unattended, the perceived 'ordinary.' Horowitz encourages us to rediscover the extraordinary things that we are missing in our ordinary activities. Even when engaged in the simplest of activities like taking a walk around the block, we pay so little attention to most of what is right before us that we are sleepwalkers in our own lives.