The Happiness Equation: Want Nothing + Do Anything = Have Everything


Neil Pasricha - 2015
    After selling more than a million copies of his Book of Awesome series, he now shifts his focus from observation to application. In The Happiness Equation, Pasricha illustrates how to want nothing, do anything, and have everything. If that sounds like a contradiction, you simply haven’t unlocked the 9 Secrets to Happiness. Each secret takes a common ideal, flips it on its head, and casts it in a completely new light. Pasricha then goes a step further by providing step-by-step guidelines and hand-drawn scribbles that illustrate exactly how to apply each secret to live a happier life today. Controversial? Maybe. Counterintuitive? Definitely.The Happiness Equation will teach you such principles as: · Why success doesn’t lead to happiness  · How to make more money than a Harvard MBA  · Why multitasking is a myth  · How eliminating options leads to more choiceThe Happiness Equation is a book that will change how you think about everything—your time, your career, your relationships, your family, and, ultimately, of course, your happiness.

The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten: 100 Experiments for the Armchair Philosopher


Julian Baggini - 2005
    Taking examples from sources as diverse as Plato and Steven Spielberg, author Julian Baggini presents abstract philosophical issues in concrete terms, suggesting possible solutions while encouraging readers to draw their own conclusions: Lively, clever, and thought-provoking, The Pig That Wants to Be Eaten is a portable feast for the mind that is sure to satisfy any intellectual appetite.

An Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments


Ali Almossawi - 2013
    I have selected a small set of common errors in reasoning and visualized them using memorable illustrations that are supplemented with lots of examples. The hope is that the reader will learn from these pages some of the most common pitfalls in arguments and be able to identify and avoid them in practice.

The Atheist's Bible: An Illustrious Collection of Irreverent Thoughts


Joan Konner - 2007
    True? Here are quips, quotes, and questions from a distinguished assortment of geniuses and jokers, giving readers a chance to decide for themselves....When I think of all the harm [the bible] has done, I despair of ever writing anything to equal it.Oscar WildeSAINT, n. A dead sinner revised and edited.Ambrose BierceThere ain't no answer. There ain't going to be any answer. There never has been an answer. That's the answer.Gertrude SteinDo not let yourself be deceived: great intellects are skeptical.Friedrich NietzscheMillions long for immortality who don't know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.Susan ErtzGod is love, but get it in writing.Gypsy Rose LeeNothing is at last sacred but the integrity of our own mind.Ralph Waldo EmersonThe fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.George Bernard Shaw

Everyday Zen: Love and Work


Charlotte Joko Beck - 1989
    Combining earthly wisdom with spiritual enlightenment, it describes how to live each moment to the full and shows the relevance of Zen to every aspect of life.

Bad Science


Ben Goldacre - 2008
    When Dr Ben Goldacre saw someone on daytime TV dipping her feet in an 'Aqua Detox' footbath, releasing her toxins into the water, turning it brown, he thought he'd try the same at home. 'Like some kind of Johnny Ball cum Witchfinder General', using his girlfriend's Barbie doll, he gently passed an electrical current through the warm salt water. It turned brown. In his words: 'before my very eyes, the world's first Detox Barbie was sat, with her feet in a pool of brown sludge, purged of a weekend's immorality.' Dr Ben Goldacre is the author of the Bad Science column in the Guardian. His book is about all the 'bad science' we are constantly bombarded with in the media and in advertising. At a time when science is used to prove everything and nothing, everyone has their own 'bad science' moments from the useless pie-chart on the back of cereal packets to the use of the word 'visibly' in cosmetics ads.

101 Essays That Will Change the Way You Think


Brianna Wiest - 2016
    This new compilation of her published work features pieces on why you should pursue purpose over passion, embrace negative thinking, see the wisdom in daily routine, and become aware of the cognitive biases that are creating the way you see your life. Some of these pieces have never been seen; others have been read by millions of people around the world. Regardless, each will leave you thinking: this idea changed my life.

I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was: How to Discover What You Really Want and How to Get It


Barbara Sher - 1994
    If you suspect there could be more to life than what you're getting...if you always knew you could do anything if you only knew what it was, this extraordinary book is about to prove you right!A life without direction is a life without passion.  The dynamic follow-up to the phenomenal best-seller Wishcraft, I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was (the New York Times Bestseller) guides you, not to another unsatisfying job, but to a richly rewarding career rooted in your heart's desire.  And in a work of true emancipation, this life-changing sourcebook reveals how you can recapture "long lost" goals, overcome the blocks that inhibit your success, decide what you want to be, and live your dreams forever!You will learn:*       What to do if you never chose to be what you are.*       How to get off the fast track--and on to the right track.*       First aid techniques for paralyzing chronic negativity.*       How to regroup when you've lost your big dream.*       To stop waiting for luck--and start creating it.

Six-Word Memoirs on Love and Heartbreak: by Writers Famous and Obscure


Larry Smith - 2008
    . .From the editors of the New York Times bestseller Not Quite What I Was Planning comes another collection of terse true tales—this time simple sagas exploring the complexities of the human heart. Six-Word Memoirs on Love & Heartbreak contains hundreds of personal stories about the pinnacles and pitfalls of romance. Brilliant in their brevity, these insightful slivers of passion, pain, and connection capture every shade of love and loss—six words at a time.

How to Live on 24 Hours a Day


Arnold Bennett - 1908
    Out of it you have to spin health, pleasure, money, content, respect, and the evolution of your immortal soul. This timeless classic is one of the first self-help books ever written and was a best-seller in both England and America. It remains as useful today as when it was written, and offers fresh and practical advice on how to make the most of the daily miracle of life.

The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want


Sonja Lyubomirsky - 2007
    Research psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky's pioneering concept of the 40% solution shows you how Drawing on her own groundbreaking research with thousands of men and women, research psychologist and University of California professor of psychology Sonja Lyubomirsky has pioneered a detailed yet easy-to-follow plan to increase happiness in our day-to-day lives-in the short term and over the long term. The How of Happiness is a different kind of happiness book, one that offers a comprehensive guide to understanding what happiness is, and isn't, and what can be done to bring us all closer to the happy life we envision for ourselves. Using more than a dozen uniquely formulated happiness-increasing strategies, The How of Happiness offers a new and potentially life- changing way to understand our innate potential for joy and happiness as well as our ability to sustain it in our lives. Beginning with a short diagnostic quiz that helps readers to first quantify and then to understand what she describes as their "happiness set point," Lyubomirsky reveals that this set point determines just 50 percent of happiness while a mere 10 percent can be attributed to differences in life circumstances or situations. This leaves a startling, and startlingly underdeveloped, 40 percent of our capacity for happiness within our power to change. Lyubomirsky's "happiness strategies" introduce readers to the concept of intentional activities, mindful actions that they can use to achieve a happier life. These include exercises in practicing optimism when imagining the future, instruction in how best to savor life's pleasures in the here and now, and a thoroughgoing explanation of the importance of staying active to being happy. Helping readers find the right fit between the goals they set and the activities she suggests, Lyubomirsky also helps readers understand the many obstacles to happiness as well as how to harness individual strengths to overcome them. Always emphasizing how much of our happiness is within our control, Lyubomirsky addresses the "scientific how" of her happiness research, demystifying the many myths that unnecessarily complicate its pursuit. Unlike those of many self-help books, all her recommendations are supported by scientific research. The How of Happiness is both a powerful contribution to the field of positive psychology and a gift to all those who have questioned their own well- being and sought to take their happiness into their own hands.

So You've Been Publicly Shamed


Jon Ronson - 2015
    The shamed are people like us - people who, say, made a joke on social media that came out badly, or made a mistake at work. Once their transgression is revealed, collective outrage circles with the force of a hurricane and the next thing they know they're being torn apart by an angry mob, jeered at, demonized, sometimes even fired from their job. People are using shame as a form of social control.

Healing the Child Within: Discovery and Recovery for Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families


Charles L. Whitfield - 1987
    Whitfield provides a clear and effective introduction to the basic principles of recovery. This book is a modern classic, as fresh and useful today as it was more than a decade ago when first published. Here, frontline physician and therapist Charles Whitfield describes the process of wounding that the Child Within (True Self) experiences and shows how to differentiate the True Self from the false self. He also describes the core issues of recovery and more. Other writings on this topic have come and gone, while Healing the Child Within has remained a strong introduction to recognizing and healing from the painful effects of childhood trauma. Highly recommended by therapists and survivors of trauma.

The Unknown Unknown: Bookshops and the Delight of Not Getting What You Wanted


Mark Forsyth - 2014
    Mark Forsyth – author of the Sunday Times Number One bestseller The Etymologicon – reveals in this essay, specially commissioned for Independent Booksellers Week, the most valuable thing about a really good bookshop.Along the way he considers the wisdom of Donald Rumsfeld, naughty French photographs, why Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy would never have met online, and why only a bookshop can give you that precious thing – what you never knew you were looking for.

The Desire Map


Danielle LaPorte - 2012
    Which is valuable. Getting results is what moves your life forward. Except that most goal-setting systems fail to harness the most powerful driver behind any aspiration: your preferred feelings; and they foster an uptight determination that can keep us from the vitality we crave.The Desire Map program is changing all of that. You could call it holistic life-planning. The inner meets the outer. The spirit drives the material.The purpose of The Desire Map is: - Ultimately, to help you remember your light, your true nature, your source. - To show you your heart’s longing — your core desired - feelings. - To help you use your core desired feelings as a guidance system for making choices. - To help you use your desired feelings as a way to access comfort and clarity during painful times. - To help you accentuate the positive aspects of your life, while still honouring, and not invalidating, the negative parts that you want to change. - To help you regard your feelings as road signs to your Soul.So that you can: - Plan your day, your week, your month, your year and… - Feel great, making a lot of awesome things happen in every area your life.