A lot of people in my life have asked me for book recommendations for self help/ self improvement/ building books. But I don’t read that genre, I read classic literature, philosophy, fiction/ non fiction
And the worst part is they keep telling me they’re going to purchase or already have purchased the book 48 laws of power or atomic habits. And the ones that have already brought it never end up reading it cause they’re not readers and don’t get hooked onto it easily. So that’s why I don’t recommend that they start reading trendy books and to actually research the type of books they’ll end up reading start to finish. But none of them seem to have the time or energy for that,
so can anyone help me give out suggestions to none readers who want to self improve? Books that are easy to get into?
I have recommended them fiction. I feel like those in some way can also help a person improve.
by Responsible-Salt5399
2 Comments
Miracle in the Andes (Nando Parrado) is excellent survival nonfiction that’s likely to to pull in folks like this. Parrado, and his story, has the perfect and rather unusual combination of being someone who’s likely to impress the shit out of people who are drawn to those sorts of books… while also being emotionally and psychologically self aware and thoughtful. And his story/the story of the group he survived with is fucking astounding.
(I’d also recommend it to you. And/or (for you) Society of the Snow/La Sociedad de la Nieve, which is about the same incident but is a collective rather than individual memoir.)
I lean scientific psychology stuff that’s written in an accessible format when I see self help requests. (Admittedly because psychology is what I read, but some of it is written in the same style and a lot of the marketing overlaps.)
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**Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke** is super accessible and explains bias in an understandable way. Her **How to Decide** covers some of the same ground but is more prescriptive and includes worksheets. **Algorithms to Live By by Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths** also includes decisions and similar real life situations, but focuses on how the optimization problems were solved in analogous computer science arenas.
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**Chatter by Ethan Kross** discusses negative self talk loops and tools to minimize them. **Feeling Good by David Burns** is more dense, but has worksheets again, and was written to work with cognitive behavioral therapy (but doesn’t rely on also having therapy to be useful).
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**The Alter Ego Effect by Todd Herman** is the most “self-help-like” (read: not as clearly backed by science) that makes my list, but I do think it’s still largely reasonable scientifically. The core idea is that you’re not going to behave the same at work as you will as a parent, etc. It’s part “fake it til you make it”, but if you take it seriously, the most practical takeaway is to think, concretely, about what patterns of behavior you want to take in different environments, then put yourself into that headspace and mindfully behave consistently for that arena. **Presence by Amy Cuddy** feels a little similar thematically. It’s about using body language deliberately, but instead of focusing on what it communicates to others, focuses on what it communicates to you. Confident postures really do impact how you think.
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If you want any further thoughts on any of that, or want to browse [my larger “curated” list](https://hardcover.app/@JDM_books/lists/intelligence?referrer_id=24134) and see about the accessibility of any of those, I’m more than happy to discuss anything further. I’m trying to avoid being too much of a wall of text up front lol.