Games People Play


Eric Berne - 1964
    More than five million copies later, Dr. Eric Berne’s classic is as astonishing–and revealing–as it was on the day it was first published. This anniversary edition features a new introduction by Dr. James R. Allen, president of the International Transactional Analysis Association, and Kurt Vonnegut’s brilliant Life magazine review from 1965.We play games all the time–sexual games, marital games, power games with our bosses, and competitive games with our friends. Detailing status contests like “Martini” (I know a better way), to lethal couples combat like “If It Weren’t For You” and “Uproar,” to flirtation favorites like “The Stocking Game” and “Let’s You and Him Fight,” Dr. Berne exposes the secret ploys and unconscious maneuvers that rule our intimate lives.Explosive when it first appeared, Games People Play is now widely recognized as the most original and influential popular psychology book of our time. It’s as powerful and eye-opening as ever.

I'm OK - You're OK


Thomas A. Harris - 1967
    “Happy childhood” notwithstanding, says Harris, most of us are living out the not ok feelings of a defenseless child wholly dependent on ok others (parents) for stroking and caring. At some stage early in our lives we adopt a “position” about ourselves which very significantly determines how we feel about ourselves, particularly in relation to other people. And for a huge portion of the population, that position is that I’m Not OK-You’re OK. This negative Life Position, shared by successful and unsuccessful people alike, contaminates our rational adult potential, leaving us vulnerable to the inappropriate, emotional reactions of our child and the uncritically learned behavior programmed into our parent. By exploring the four basic “life positions,” we can radically change our lives.

Make or Break: Don't Let Climbing Injuries Dictate Your Success


Dave MacLeod - 2015
    Sooner or later, nearly all climbers get injured and it will be injuries that ultimately dictate how far you get in climbing, if you let them. Unfortunately, the data shows it takes over a decade just to get small proportions of medical research adopted in regular practice. Sourcing reliable and up to date advice on preventing and treating finger, elbow, shoulder and other climbing injuries is challenging to say the least. You need to be the expert, because there are so many strands of knowledge and practice to pull together to stay healthy as a climber, and no single source of advice to cover all of these. The book draws together both the cutting edge of peer reviewed sports medicine research, and the subtle concepts of changing your climbing habits and routine to prevent and successfully recover from injuries. It is a handbook on how to take care of yourself as a lifelong climbing athlete. By spanning the fields of climbing coaching, physiotherapy, sports medicine and behavioural science, it goes beyond the general advice on treating symptoms offered by sports medicine textbooks and into much more detail on technique and habits specific to climbing than the existing climbing literature base. You will learn how your current climbing habits are already causing your future injuries and what you can do to change that. If you are already injured, it will prevent you from prolonging your injury with the wrong climbing habits and rehabilitation choices. You will learn how the ingredients of prevention and good recovery come from wildly different sources and how you have been using only a fraction of them. Fully referenced throughout, the practical advice for diagnosis, rehabilitation and prevention of climbing injuries is drawn from up to date peer reviewed sports medicine research.

The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You


Elaine N. Aron - 1996
    In this groundbreaking book, Dr. Elaine Aron, a clinical psychologist, workshop leader, and an HSP herself, shows you how to identify this trait in yourself and make the most of it in everyday situations. Drawing on her many years of research and hundreds of interviews, she shows how you can better understand yourself and your trait to create a fuller, richer life.

The Power of When: Discover Your Chronotype--and the Best Time to Eat Lunch, Ask for a Raise, Have Sex, Write a Novel, Take Your Meds, and More


Michael Breus - 2016
    Most advice centers on what to do, or how to do it, and ignores the when of success. But exciting new research proves there is a right time to do just about everything, based on our biology and hormones. As Dr. Michael Breus proves in THE POWER OF WHEN, working with your body's inner clock for maximum health, happiness, and productivity is easy, exciting, and fun. THE POWER OF WHEN presents a groundbreaking new program for getting back in sync with your natural rhythm by making minor changes to your daily routine. After you've taken Dr. Breus's comprehensive Bio-Time Quiz to figure out your chronotype (are you a Bear, Lion, Dolphin or Wolf?), you'll find out the best time to do over 50 different activities. Featuring a foreword by Mehmet C. Oz, MD, and packed with fascinating facts, fun personality quizzes, and easy-to-follow guidelines, THE POWER OF WHEN is the ultimate "lifehack" to help you achieve your goals.

Vertical Mind: Psychological Approaches for Optimal Rock Climbing


Don McGrath - 2014
    They teach how the latest research in brain science and psychology can help you retrain your mind and body for higher levels of rock climbing performance, while also demonstrating how to train and overcome fears and anxiety that hold you back. Finally, they teach climbing partners how to engage in co-creative coaching and help each other improve as climbers. With numerous and practical step-by-step drills and exercises, in a simple to follow training framework, your path to harder climbing has never been clearer. If you are a climber who wants to climb harder and have more fun climbing, then Vertical Mind is required reading. Well, what's stopping you? Pick it up and get training today!

Let Your Mind Run: A Memoir of Thinking My Way to Victory


Deena Kastor - 2018
    In Let Your Mind Run, the vaunted Olympic medalist and marathon and half-marathon record holder, will reveal how she incorporated the benefits of positive psychology into her already-dedicated running practice, setting her on a course to conquer women's distance running. Blending both narrative running insights and deep-dive brain science, this book will appeal to and motivate steadfast athletes, determined runners, and tough-as-nails coaches, and beyond. This memoir, written by perhaps the most famous American woman active in the competitive world of distance running, will appeal to the pragmatic athletic population, and jointly to fans of engaging sports narratives, inspirational memoirs, and uplifiting biographies.

The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative


Florence Williams - 2017
    Delving into brand-new research, she uncovers the powers of the natural world to improve health, promote reflection and innovation, and strengthen our relationships. As our modern lives shift dramatically indoors, these ideas—and the answers they yield—are more urgent than ever.

High Infatuation: A Climber's Guide to Love and Gravity


Steph Davis - 2007
     Throughout her life, Steph Davis has chosen to take risks, to trust her impulses, to make decisions based on what feels right inside -- and never look back. Studying to be a concert pianist, she quit music the day she was introduced to rock climbing. Later, she abandoned the respectability of university life and pursuit of a law degree to become a "dirtbag climber," living out of her grandmother's hand-me-down Oldsmobile sedan with Fletcher, a heeler mix dog. Today, through courage and perseverance, Davis is a high-profile athlete whose sponsors have included Patagonia, Mammut, Clif Bar, Five Ten and Cascade Designs. In High Infatuation, Davis writes on the universal themes of life, love, friendship, personal empowerment, and more, told through a career in climbing. We wait with her in the tent through weeks of rain, wind, snow, and sleet, hoping for the weather to improve in the mountains of Patagonia, then race with her up a towering rock wall of Yosemite's El Capitan in a single day. More than adventure stories, these pieces reveal Davis' soul. They draw us into her struggles with safety, independence, ambition, and compassion. By following the journey of this remarkable woman, we learn what it means to live a truly adventurous life.

The Brain that Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science


Norman Doidge - 2007
    Psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Norman Doidge, M.D., traveled the country to meet both the brilliant scientists championing neuroplasticity and the people whose lives they’ve transformed - people whose mental limitations or brain damage were seen as unalterable. We see a woman born with half a brain that rewired itself to work as a whole, blind people who learn to see, learning disorders cured, IQs raised, aging brains rejuvenated, stroke patients learning to speak, children with cerebral palsy learning to move with more grace, depression and anxiety disorders successfully treated, and lifelong character traits changed. Using these marvelous stories to probe mysteries of the body, emotion, love, sex, culture, and education, Dr. Doidge has written an immensely moving, inspiring book that will permanently alter the way we look at our brains, human nature, and human potential.

Climbing Free: My Life in the Vertical World


Lynn Hill - 2002
    Before long she was arguably the best rock climber in the world, establishing routes so bold and difficult that few others could follow. And in 1994, Lynn succeeded on a climb that no one—man or woman—has been able to repeat: the first "free ascent" of the Nose on Yosemite's El Capitan, which means that she climbed 3,000 feet of vertical granite without using gear to aid her ascent—and all in under twenty-three hours. In Climbing Free Hill describes her famous climb and meditates on how she harnesses the strength and the courage to push herself to such extremes. She tells of her near-fatal 80-foot fall, her youth as a stunt artist for Hollywood, her friendships with climbing's most colorful personalities, and the tragedies and triumphs of her life in the vertical world. More than merely a story of adventure, this book stands out as a genuine, singular account of a life richly and boldly lived.

The Top Five Regrets of the Dying: A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departing


Bronnie Ware - 2011
    Despite having no formal qualifications or experience, she found herself in palliative care. Over the years she spent tending to the needs of those who were dying, Bronnie’s life was transformed. Later, she wrote an Internet blog about the most common regrets expressed to her by the people she had cared for. The article, also called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, gained so much momentum that it was read by more than three million people around the globe in its first year. At the requests of many, Bronnie now shares her own personal story. Bronnie has had a colourful and diverse past, but by applying the lessons of those nearing their death to her own life, she developed an understanding that it is possible for people, if they make the right choices, to die with peace of mind. In this book, she expresses in a heartfelt retelling how significant these regrets are and how we can positively address these issues while we still have the time. The Top Five Regrets of the Dying gives hope for a better world. It is a story told through sharing her inspiring and honest journey, which will leave you feeling kinder towards yourself and others, and more determined to live the life you are truly here to live. This delightful memoir is a courageous, life-changing book."

Deskbound: Standing Up to a Sitting World


Kelly Starrett - 2015
    Recent studies show that too much sitting contributes to a host of diseases—from obesity and diabetes to cancer and depression—and literally shortens your life. The facts are in: your chair is your enemy, and it is murdering your body. In Deskbound, Dr. Kelly Starrett—physical therapist and author of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling book Becoming a Supple Leopard—unveils how your sedentary lifestyle is killing you and, more important, what you can do to change it. Deskbound offers a detailed battle plan for surviving the chair and reclaiming your birthright of mobility and freedom from pain. It provides creative solutions to reduce the amount of time you spend perched on your backside, as well as strategies for the workplace and school that will improve your productivity and your overall health. You will learn how to identify and fix poor posture while sitting and standing; how to prevent, treat, and resolve low back, neck, shoulder, and wrist pain; and avoid and reverse repetitive stress injuries like carpal tunnel and tendonitis. Whether your goal is to maximize your performance in and out of the workplace or simply to live pain free, Deskbound is the blueprint. Dr. Starrett provides a revolutionary cure for desk-death.

The Courage to Be Disliked: How to Free Yourself, Change your Life and Achieve Real Happiness


Ichiro Kishimi - 2013
    Using the theories of Alfred Adler, one of the three giants of 19th century psychology alongside Freud and Jung, the authors explain how we are all free to determine our own future free of the shackles of past experiences, doubts and the expectations of others. It’s a philosophy that’s profoundly liberating, allowing us to develop the courage to change, and to ignore the limitations that we and those around us can place on ourselves.The result is a book that is both highly accessible and profound in its importance. Millions have already read and benefited from its wisdom. Now that The Courage to be Disliked has been published for the first time in English, so can you.

The Joy of Movement: How Exercise Helps Us Find Happiness, Hope, Connection, and Courage


Kelly McGonigal - 2019
    But, as Kelly McGonigal reveals, it doesn't have to be. Movement can and should be a source of joy.Through her trademark blend of science and storytelling, McGonigal draws on insights from neuroscience, psychology, anthropology, and evolutionary biology, as well as memoirs, ethnographies, and philosophers. She shows how movement is intertwined with some of the most basic human joys, including self-expression, social connection, and mastery--and why it is a powerful antidote to the modern epidemics of depression, anxiety, and loneliness.McGonigal tells the stories of people who have found fulfillment and belonging through running, walking, dancing, swimming, weightlifting, and more, with examples that span the globe, from Tanzania, where one of the last hunter-gatherer tribes on the planet live, to a dance class at Juilliard for people with Parkinson's disease, to the streets of London, where volunteers combine fitness and community service, to races in the remote wilderness, where athletes push the limits of what a human can endure. Along the way, McGonigal paints a portrait of human nature that highlights our capacity for hope, cooperation, and self-transcendence.The result is a revolutionary narrative that goes beyond familiar arguments in favor of exercise, to illustrate why movement is integral to both our happiness and our humanity. Readers will learn what they can do in their own lives and communities to harness the power of movement to create happiness, meaning, and connection.