5 Books Worth Reading During The Pandemic
The pandemic has taught us many lessons. Despite the unsettling current situation, there are plenty of ways to find comfort at home, whether it’s binging on your favorite show, trying out a new recipe, or diving into a self-help book. Reading is an investment in myself, and I want to share some encouraging book recommendations to help cope with stress during this challenging time
The Book of Joy
by Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu
Two spiritual giants. Seven days. One timeless question.
“The ultimate source of happiness is within us.” — Dalai Lama
“We grow in kindness when our kindness is tested.” — Desmond Tutu
Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama have been friends for many, many years. Between them, they have endured exile, violence and oppression. And in the face of these hardships, they have continued to radiate compassion, humour and above all, joy.
To celebrate His Holiness’s eightieth birthday, Archbishop Tutu travelled to the Dalai Lama’s home in Dharamsala. The two men spent a week discussing a single burning question: how do we find joy in the face of suffering?
This book is a gift from two of the most important spiritual figures of our time. Full of love, warmth and hope, The Book of Joy offers us the chance to experience their journey from first embrace to final goodbye.
The Comfort Book
by Matt Haig
A manual of reflections for an increasingly stressful world
The Comfort Book is a collection of little islands of hope, a gathering of consolations and stories that give us new ways of seeing ourselves and the world.
Matt Haig’s mix of philosophy, memoir and self-reflection builds on the wisdom of philosophers and survivors through the ages, from Marcus Aurelius to Nellie Bly, from Emily Dickinson to James Baldwin.
This is the book to pick up when you need the wisdom of a friend or the comfort of a hug, or just want to celebrate the messy miracle of being alive.
“Nothing is stronger than a small hope that doesn’t give up.”
— Matt Haig, The Comfort Book
Homo Deus
by Yuval Noah Harari
Sapiens showed us where we came from. In uncertain times, Homo Deus shows us where we’re going.
Yuval Noah Harari envisions a near future in which we face a new set of challenges. Homo Deus explores the projects, dreams and nightmares that will shape the twenty-first century and beyond — from overcoming death to creating artificial life.
It asks the fundamental questions: how can we protect this fragile world from our own destructive power? And what does our future hold?
“People are usually afraid of change because they fear the unknown. But the single greatest constant of history is that everything changes.”
— Yuval Noah Harari, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone
by Lori Gottlieb
One day, Lori Gottlieb is a therapist who helps patients in her Los Angeles practice. The next, a crisis causes her world to come crashing down. Enter Wendell, the quirky but seasoned therapist in whose office she suddenly lands. With his balding head, cardigan, and khakis, he seems to have come straight from Therapist Central Casting. Yet he will turn out to be anything but.
As Gottlieb explores the inner chambers of her patients’ lives — a self-absorbed Hollywood producer, a young newlywed diagnosed with a terminal illness, a senior citizen threatening to end her life on her birthday if nothing gets better, and a twenty-something who can’t stop hooking up with the wrong guys — she finds that the questions they are struggling with are the very ones she is now bringing to Wendell.
With startling wisdom and humor, Gottlieb invites us into her world as both clinician and patient, examining the truths and fictions we tell ourselves and others as we teeter on the tightrope between love and desire, meaning and mortality, guilt and redemption, terror and courage, hope and change.
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone is revolutionary in its candor, offering a deeply personal yet universal tour of our hearts and minds and providing the rarest of gifts: a boldly revealing portrait of what it means to be human, and a disarmingly funny and illuminating account of our own mysterious lives and our power to transform them.
“We can’t have change without loss, which is why so often people say they want change but nonetheless stay exactly the same.”
— Lori Gottlieb, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone
Everything Is Fucked: A Book About Hope
by Mark Manson
We live in an interesting time. Materially, everything is the best it’s ever been — we are freer, healthier and wealthier than any people in human history. Yet, somehow everything seems to be irreparably and horribly f*cked — the planet is warming, governments are failing, economies are collapsing, and everyone is perpetually offended on Twitter. At this moment in history, when we have access to technology, education and communication our ancestors couldn’t even dream of, so many of us come back to an overriding feeling of hopelessness.
What’s going on? If anyone can put a name to our current malaise and help fix it, it’s Mark Manson. In 2016, Manson published The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F*ck, a book that brilliantly gave shape to the ever-present, low-level hum of anxiety that permeates modern living. He showed us that technology had made it too easy to care about the wrong things, that our culture had convinced us that the world owed us something when it didn’t — and worst of all, that our modern and maddening urge to always find happiness only served to make us unhappier. Instead, the “subtle art” of that title turned out to be a bold challenge: to choose your struggle; to narrow and focus and find the pain you want to sustain. The result was a book that became an international phenomenon, selling millions of copies worldwide while becoming the #1 bestseller in 13 different countries.
Now, in Everthing Is F*cked, Manson turns his gaze from the inevitable flaws within each individual self to the endless calamities taking place in the world around us. Drawing from the pool of psychological research on these topics, as well as the timeless wisdom of philosophers such as Plato, Nietzsche, and Tom Waits, he dissects religion and politics and the uncomfortable ways they have come to resemble one another. He looks at our relationships with money, entertainment and the internet, and how too much of a good thing can psychologically eat us alive. He openly defies our definitions of faith, happiness, freedom — and even of hope itself.
With his usual mix of erudition and where-the-f*ck-did-that-come-from humor, Manson takes us by the collar and challenges us to be more honest with ourselves and connected with the world in ways we probably haven’t considered before. It’s another counterintuitive romp through the pain in our hearts and the stress of our soul. One of the great modern writers has produced another book that will set the agenda for years to come.
“The only true form of freedom, the only ethical form of freedom, is through self-limitation. It is not the privilege of choosing everything you want in your life, but rather, choosing what you will give up in your life.”
— Mark Manson, Everything Is F*cked: A Book About Hope
