CAREER CHANGE
Herminia Ibarra, Working Identity (Harvard Business Review)
This book promises “unconventional strategies for reinventing your career,” and it delivers. What is so unique about Ibarra’s approach, which is based on the extensive research you’d expect from an HBR publication, is that she bucks the conventional wisdom about career change. Don’t reflect, soul-search, take assessments, and develop a strategy before taking steps towards career change; just start walking. Ibarra invites an iterative process of action and reflection, where we learn what we want by actually trying things, and she offers examples of how one might do this without leaving one’s current job. (She came out with a second edition in 2023, but I prefer the wonkier first edition.)
Tim Clark, Business Model You (Wiley)
This one is fun, full of short case studies and exercises you can do. The big idea is that you can apply the logic of a business model to your own professional life as you consider making a career change. I would use it alongside, not instead of, the iterative approach Ibarra outlines in Working Identity.
CREATIVITY
Julia Cameron, The Artist’s Way (Macmillan)
This can be an infuriating book — entitled, materialistic, New Agey, and more spiritual than many are comfortable with. But it is a brilliant tool for those looking to connect with their inner artist, creative child, buried desires, etc, and I would be remiss not to share it as a resource. If you can stomach the cringe-worthy bits, you will find a wealth of truly valuable insights, tools and opportunities. The book is designed as a 12-week programme, though it can easily be stretched out over a longer period. I recommend doing it with a friend. If you love it, you can try her follow-up programmes, The Listening Path and Walking in this World.
Audre Lorde, “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power”
This essay is hard to categorise, but as it’s about engaging the body’s deep, generative, joyful creativity, I’m putting it here. You can read the transcript of Lorde’s 1978 talk in adrienne maree brown’s Pleasure Activism (AK Press 2019) or Roxane Gay’s The Selected Works of Audre Lorde (Norton 2020). Or, better yet, listen to Lorde deliver it herself. The way she connects the spiritual, the embodied, and the political blows my mind.
Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic (Bloomsbury)
This is a breezy read about how creativity and fear go hand-in-hand. I love the bit about thinking of a creative project like a cross-country road trip, where fear gets to ride along in the back seat but isn’t allowed to adjust the temperature or choose the music. Topics include inspiration, rejection, process, etc, with lots of encouragement to just lighten up about the whole thing.
Seth Godin, The Practice (Penguin)
This is technically a business book, but its messages apply to anyone who does creative work. Godin publishes books ever year or so that are compilations of his daily blog posts, so expect extremely short chapters organised into thematic sections. His basic argument is that the creative process isn’t magical (so it’s an interesting book to read alongside Gilbert’s), and your job is to just show up, do the work, and get it out there. The less precious you are about things, the more you achieve.
Sarah Lewis, The Rise (William Collins)
About creativity and failure, written by an art critic and curator who now works on democracy and racial justice at Harvard. It’s a dense book, deeply researched, with a lot to say, and I’m working my way through it slowly. My favourite bit so far comes from the chapter on choreographer Paul Taylor, in a section on the utility of pressure. Lewis quotes Leonard Bernstein: “To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan, and not quite enough time.” The beauty and generative power of a deadline!
DHARMA
Pema Chödrön, Start Where You Are (Shambhala)
There is a genre of dharma books which are all about accepting yourself exactly as you are. Tara Brach’s Radical Acceptance and Sharon Salzberg’s Lovingkindness are two popular examples. I’ve decided to recommend this one because I so admire and appreciate Pema Chodron’s direct, penetrating voice. Take these opening lines: ‘We already have everything we need. There is no need for self-improvement.’ There is no one like her for getting right to the heart of things, and I recommend everything she has written. If it’s all a bit too Buddhist for you (as it was for me when I first picked up her books), you can just pay attention to what feels might be useful and allow yourself to experiment.
Pema Chödrön, Welcoming the Unwelcome (Shambhala)
Published in 2019 with the subtitle “Wholehearted Living in a Brokenhearted World,” it speaks directly to the dystopia we find ourselves living in. I especially recommend the L.E.S.R. practice she shares on pages 161-164. It’s similar to the RAIN practice Tara Brach teaches, but I find it more straightforward.
Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching (Parrallax)
Full of insights, even if you have no interest in meditating. The section on the noble eightfold path – which includes right diligence, right concentration, and right livelihood – is especially pertinent to thinking about productivity in work and life. I also love the section on seed consciousness.
Sebene Selassie, You Belong (HarperOne)
My newest go-to dharma book recommendation. Published in 2020, totally accessible and real, funny, and absolutely beautiful. Especially good on the body (see Chapter 3).
Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind (Shambhala)
The classic starting point for beginning a Zen meditation practice. Spare, straightforward, and full of little gems. One example: ‘Calmness of mind does not mean you should stop your activity. Real calmness should be found in activity itself.’
One Robe, One Bowl: The Zen Poetry of Ryokan, John Stevens trans. (Weatherhill)
Poems written by a childlike, sake-loving, hermit-monk at the turn of the 18th century. One of my favourites ends with these lines: If you point your cart north / when you want to go south, / How will you arrive?
GRIEF
Megan Devine, It’s OK That You’re Not OK (SoundsTrue)
I love this book for its practicality. It’s a how-to guide for grief: how to do it, how to support it, how to allow it. Whether you are grieving yourself or supporting someone who is, this is a direct, no bs place to start, and easy to dip in and out of as needed.
Francis Weller, The Wild Edge of Sorrow (North Atlantic Books)
Offers a more expansive perspective on grief that Devine’s book, which is very much focussed on the sudden loss of a loved one. Weller, instead, describes multiple gates to grief, including not only the gate of loss but also those of the places that have not known love; the sorrows of the world; what we expected and did not receive; and ancestral grief. An invitation to create ritual and to develop a perspective on happiness which cherishes grief as a means to increase presence and embrace all of the human experience in its complexity and contradiction. Some of you may find it a bit too men-who-run-with-the-wolves (I did in parts), but there is so much there to balance that out.
HAPPINESS
Rick Hanson, Hardwiring Happiness (Rider)
If you are wondering why you are always focusing on the negative – the mis-steps, the problems, the fears – rather than on the positive – a commitment kept, a warm smile, a compliment received – this is your book. It’s not some personal pathology; it’s called negativity bias and it’s just how your human brain is wired. Brains can be retrained, and this book tells you how.
PRODUCTIVITY & TIME MANAGEMENT
James Clear, Atomic Habits (Random House)
You know those guys who read a lot about something and decide they’re experts, even though they are mostly just repackaging other people’s ideas? Don’t read this if they bug you. If you can deal with that, this book offers good, clear summaries of literature on habit-building, with some very useful concepts (1% better and habit stacking are two of my favourites). You’ll especially like this book if you’re into weight lifting metaphors.
Neil Fiore, The Now Habit (Tarcher)
The book I most often recommend. If you struggle with procrastination, read this book. If you struggle with perfectionism, read this book. If you struggle with developing a realistic sense of how much time you have to work each day, read this book. (Yes, this is the unschedule guy.)
Kate Northrup, Do Less (Hay House)
I’ve added this back to the list after having taken it off because so many people I’ve recommended it to find themselves referencing it years later. Basically, this is a book about working with your cycles instead of against them. It’s written for women, narrowly-defined, and is very heteronormative in its assumptions, so consider if that’s okay with you before you pick it up. Two concepts I really like from it are “egg wisdom,” which is about allowing things to happen rather than muscling them into being, and “I am the source of time,” as something to consider when things start to feel way too hectic. And, of course, the title: often, the way to be get more done is to do fewer things.
Oliver Burkeman, 4000 Weeks (FSG / Bodley Head)
The current productivity must-read, and I think it’s brilliant. If I were to write a productivity book, this would be the one. What happens when you realise that this — this right now — is your one, precious life? He has a new one out as well, which I haven’t yet read, called Meditations for Mortals, and a nice newsletter called The Imperfectionist.
While I haven’t written a productivity book yet, I did recently write a little about my to-do list system if you’re interested.
RAGE
Brittney Cooper, Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower (Picador)
While I suspect this one may be too US-centric for some of you, I know I want to read about rage. I want to feel connected with and empowered by others who are angry, I want to better understand the lived struggle for racial justice, and I want to know how my own fight against patriarchy and neoliberalism can contribute to the other, intersecting fights against injustice and oppression that are being fought simultaneously. And I love the idea of rage as a superpower! (Ruth King’s Healing Rage is another to check out.)
Lama Rod Owens, Love and Rage (North Atlantic Books)
I have not read this carefully yet, but I listened to Lama Rod Ownens give a talk on it in which he said, “My anger is a testament that I’m paying attention somehow. My love is what cares for my anger.” Read that again. Those two sentences alone are enough for me to recommend this book.
REST
Josh Cohen, Not Working (Granta)
While much of this book is very literary theorist amusing himself, and mostly about men, the introduction stopped me in my tracks. This could be because I was sick in bed while reading it, but I’ll give Cohen more credit than that. His introduction is a terrific antidote to the rest-is-a-great-way-to-work-more angle you get from books like Alex Soojung-Kim Pang’s Rest. In fact, Cohen is fairly revolutionary in arguing for the importance of rest for rest’s sake. He suggests it’s time to stop ‘sacralizing work.’ Instead, we might stop and let ourselves develop ‘a sense of how we might float free from gravity’s pull.’
The Nap Ministry
This blog (and associated social media) is the work of a collective founded by artist, activist and healer Tricia Hersey. The Nap Ministry sees rest as resistance. Naps are, in its words, ‘a radical tool for community healing,’ and sleep deprivation is a racial and social justice issue. A useful (and I think very necessary) counterbalance to Cohen’s work. UPDATE: There is now a book! Tricia Hersey, Rest as Resistance: A Manifesto (Little, Brown Spark).
SOLIDARITY
Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants (Penguin)
Gorgeous writing on solidarity with and for the earth, combining scientific perspective with Indigenous American wisdom. This, for example: ‘Alone, a bean is just a vine, squash an oversize leaf. Only when standing together with corn does a whole emerge which transcends the individual. The gifts of each are more fully expressed when they are nurtured together than alone. In ripe ears and swelling fruit, they counsel us that all gifts are multiplied in relationship. This is how the world keeps us going.’
Cinzia Arruzza, Tithi Bhattacharya, and Nancy Fraser, Feminism for the 99%: A Manifesto (Verso)
Revolutionary. You might find it says everything you’ve been thinking but have been unable to articulate about what feminism needs to do, and what you want to do as a feminist. Or, you might find it quixotic and borderline-offensive. Or you may be somewhere in between. But if you have ever been troubled by questions like: Whom is my feminism really serving? Does ‘leaning in’ actually fix anything? What if the answer is much bolder than finding a way to get more women into corner offices? Then I urge you to read this book.
Sara Ahmed, Living A Feminist Life (Duke)
I tend to avoid books that tell me what feminism is, or should be; I am far more interested in practice than theory. But this one brings both together: a book about how to be a feminist written by a leading feminist theorist. If you’re already familiar with Ahmed, you’ll see she addresses some familiar themes here (the feminist killjoy, the willful subject) — which makes this a terrific starting point if you haven’t read her. I’ll be honest: it’s slow-going, not because the language is ponderous (it’s not!), but because the ideas are so dense, and come so fast and furious. I find I do best when I allow myself to just sink into the text and let it wash over me, rather than approaching it like something that must be remembered precisely for later.
Ruth King, Mindful of Race (SoundsTrue)
Of all the books I might recommend on racial awareness and anti-racist work, I’ve chosen this one because it is written for everyone. One of the great things about that is that it gives each person who reads it, regardless of where they sit in racialist terms, a window into the work that others are doing, into other people’s realities. Like many of the books I recommend, it has a mindfulness angle. I find this especially helpful supporting investigations around race, as it couples awareness with compassion — we learn more about how we think and feel, and why, and we are encouraged to do so without judgement. (Another I’d recommend is Resmaa Menakem’s My Grandmother’s Hands (Penguin), which I’ll add to this list soon.)
TAROT
Melissa Cynova, Kitchen Table Tarot (Llewellyn)
Putting aside the question of whether you think divination is possible, consider the power of a system that considers every possible place a person might find themselves on their life’s journey at any one moment. The tarot cards include all of the ups and downs and in-betweens, every kind of person and type of challenge and reason for celebration. It makes everything in life feel so normal — that this, too, is just how things go. If you are interested at all in tarot, then this book is a smart and light-hearted place to start.
WRITING
Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird (Anchor Books)
Written with novelists in mind, but useful for anyone who writes, especially the sections on getting started, short assignments, shitty first drafts, and perfectionism. “Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts” is something worth remembering again and again. Includes her own experience as a writer and teacher of writing, as well as loads of quotes from other writers. This is one of the most beloved writing books ever written for a reason.
Joli Jensen, Write No Matter What (Chicago)
This one is specifically for academic writers, and it’s a treasure. Some of my favourite concepts come from this book: the cleared-deck fallacy and the ventilation file are two of them. Her advice on creating process-based writing groups is especially good. Hugely recommended.
Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones (Shambhala)
For those who want to do more creative writing and find themselves needing permission and places to start. This is an absolute classic, inclusive and generous. First published in 1986, it’s dated now, but who cares.
Also see Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic, Seth Godin, The Practice and Sarah Lewis, The Rise in the Creativity section as well as Neil Fiore, The Now Habit in the Productivity section.
YOGA
BKS Iyengar, Light on Yoga (Schocken Books)
Calls itself The Bible of Modern Yoga, which is entirely apt. A detailed, no-nonsense resource with descriptions and photographs of every asana. One of the best parts is Appendix II: Curative Asanas for Various Diseases, which offers poses to address everything from acidity to varicose veins. Essential reference and home practice guide for the serious student.
Sarah Powers, Insight Yoga (Shambhala)
A fantastic, highly accessible resource for incorporating yoga and meditation practices into your life. Powers is a leading teacher of yin yoga, which she correlates to traditional Chinese concepts of how the body works – the meridians along which chi flows, and the organs with which each meridian relates. If this is your cup of tea, then this book will help you identify which organs needs your attention and which yin poses will help. Even just 5-10 minutes each morning will make a difference.