Here are 100 books that Against Happiness fans have personally recommended if you like
Against Happiness.
Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.
Shepherd is reader supported. When you buy books, we may earn an affiliate commission.
I am a historian of modern Poland. I teach, write, and think a lot about Poland and its place in Europe and the world. Regardless of where I live, Poland will always be my first home, where strawberries taste the best, the forest offers the most calming shade in the summer, and the language sounds the sweetest. But Poland is also a conundrum—perhaps similar to anywhere else and unique simultaneously. Its successes and failures, the traumas it caused and experienced, are part of me, and they keep pushing me to search for people and their stories that help us see the complexity of human life and individual choices.
It’s a short book with 5 essays on displacement, loss, and ways to find a sense of belonging. The stories are personal; perhaps because of that, they touch on something that I think many of us carry in our hearts–a need to reflect on what it means to lose and rebuild a home.
The essays evoke many different themes–the power of movement and starting anew, but also a sense of alienation that even the voluntary wanderers may never lose. We carry the cultures that shaped us within us; as Eva Hoffman, one of the authors, says, “We are nothing more than the encoded memory of our heritage.” And feeling, even if a blessing, sometimes deepens our sense of alienation.
For many of the authors, it’s the language and writing that make sense of the discomfort and find a ‘home.’ It’s a small but beautifully written book and one that inspires…
"Moving, deeply introspective and honest" (Publishers Weekly) reflections on exile and memory from five award-winning authors. All of the authors in Letters of Transit have written award-winning works on exile, home, and memory, using the written word as a tool for revisiting their old homes or fashioning new ones. Now in paperback are five newly commissioned essays offering moving distillations of their most important thinking on these themes. Andre Aciman traces his migrations and compares his own transience with the uprootedness of many moderns. Eva Hoffman examines the crucial role of language and what happens when your first one is…
I am a historian of modern Poland. I teach, write, and think a lot about Poland and its place in Europe and the world. Regardless of where I live, Poland will always be my first home, where strawberries taste the best, the forest offers the most calming shade in the summer, and the language sounds the sweetest. But Poland is also a conundrum—perhaps similar to anywhere else and unique simultaneously. Its successes and failures, the traumas it caused and experienced, are part of me, and they keep pushing me to search for people and their stories that help us see the complexity of human life and individual choices.
It is a personal account of a historian examining life in Donetsk, Ukraine, during Russia's 2014 takeover. The author chronicles her experiences and observations living in a city torn apart by war, offering insights into the daily struggles, fears, and hopes of the people caught amid the conflict.
It's powerful, poignant, and full of anecdotes book that will break your heart while showing a never-ending devotion to life that Ukrainians have built. It may not be perfect, but it's theirs. "Ukraine, to me, is like my dad. It's my light. My home," says the author.
In Ukraine, War, Love, Olena Stiazhkina depicts day-to-day developments in and around her beloved hometown Donetsk during Russia's 2014 invasion and occupation of the Ukrainian city. An award-winning fiction writer, Stiazhkina chronicles an increasingly harrowing series of events with sarcasm, anger, humor, and love.
The diary opens on March 2, 2014, as the first wave of pro-Russian protest washes over eastern Ukraine in the wake of Euromaidan, the Revolution of Dignity, and it closes on August 18, 2014, the day a convoy of civilian Ukrainian refugees is deliberately slaughtered by Russian forces. Early on, Stiazhkina is captured by pro-Russian forces…
I am a historian of modern Poland. I teach, write, and think a lot about Poland and its place in Europe and the world. Regardless of where I live, Poland will always be my first home, where strawberries taste the best, the forest offers the most calming shade in the summer, and the language sounds the sweetest. But Poland is also a conundrum—perhaps similar to anywhere else and unique simultaneously. Its successes and failures, the traumas it caused and experienced, are part of me, and they keep pushing me to search for people and their stories that help us see the complexity of human life and individual choices.
A beautiful and captivating novel about love written by a Palestinian writer, it is about a woman who falls for a man she accidentally exchanges letters with. After this introductory story, the book takes the readers through the webs of other characters' lives, heartbroken, forlorn, and desiring love.
It’s a book about alienation but written in such raw and beautiful language that it’s impossible to put it down.
I am a historian of modern Poland. I teach, write, and think a lot about Poland and its place in Europe and the world. Regardless of where I live, Poland will always be my first home, where strawberries taste the best, the forest offers the most calming shade in the summer, and the language sounds the sweetest. But Poland is also a conundrum—perhaps similar to anywhere else and unique simultaneously. Its successes and failures, the traumas it caused and experienced, are part of me, and they keep pushing me to search for people and their stories that help us see the complexity of human life and individual choices.
It is a memoir about a father and a father-daughter relationship written by a daughter. But it is also a story about how history written with capital H can affect family relationships, about surprising ways children interpret their parents while searching for space for themselves in their parent’s lives. Jane Lazarre seems to live in the shadow of her extraordinary father, who left Eastern Europe in 1902 for the USA and dedicated his life to fighting for economic equality and racial justice.
He believed in a more just world, but he also struggled with depression and cracking cohesion of the communist movement that he was a member of. The book is as much about him as about his daughter’s attempts to live up to some of his dreams: it’s about love, search for answers, and reconciliation.
In a letter to his baby grandson, Bill Lazarre wrote that "unfortunately, despite the attempts by your grandpa and many others to present you with a better world, we were not very successful." Born in 1902 amid the pogroms in Eastern Europe, Lazarre dedicated his life to working for economic equality, racial justice, workers' rights, and a more just world. He was also dedicated to his family, especially his daughters, whom he raised as a single father following his wife's death. In The Communist and the Communist's Daughter Jane Lazarre weaves memories of her father with documentary materials-such as his…
I’m a certified life coach—well-versed in all nature of human experiences and how to deal with them—but when my husband died unexpectedly, suddenly the challenges became extremely personal, requiring me to broaden my understanding and skills as well as figuring out how to incorporate them into my life, instead of my clients’ lives. I did what I always do: I turned to books to help me figure out how to “put Humpty Dumpty together again.” My list includes some of the books I found most helpful as I learned a new way to live within altered circumstances.
Sorely in need of self-acceptance, self-compassion, and patience, I loved the sense of affirmation conferred by Smith’s book—the sense that I’m all right as I am, I’m enough as I am. This book led me onward—literally—since each brief meditation ends with “keep moving.”
Its format of short single entries invites thinking about a single question or situation at a time, which is especially helpful when overwhelmed. Keep Moving always leaves me in a calmer, better place, no matter how often I revisit it.
"A meditation on kindness and hope, and how to move forward through grief." -NPR
"A shining reminder to learn all we can from this moment, rebuilding ourselves in the darkness so that we may come out wiser, kinder, and stronger on the other side." -The Boston Globe
"Powerful essays on loss, endurance, and renewal." -People
Cosmopolitan's "Best Nonfiction Books of 2020" Marie Claire's "2020 Books You Should Pre-Order Now" Parade's "25 Self-Help Books To Get Your 2020 Off On The Right Foot" The Washington Post's "What to Read in 2020 Based on the Books You Loved in 2019"…
I’ve been obsessed with the creative process since I was 8 and read Harriet the Spy and realized her writing saved her and after I spied on one of my parent’s cocktail parties and wondered why everybody was so dull (I was so cheeky). Still, it’s the quest that drives me: how do we be fully ourselves in this world and how does creativity help? I explore this question on my podcast Create Out Loud and in my weekly newsletter, and these books have helped me formulate, if not answers, creative and mindful practices that sustain me daily. I hope they inspire you too.
This is one of those secret gems of a book that hardly anybody has heard of but after you read it, you’ll be giving multiple copies away to every creative you know. Rich with real-life examples from working artists and writers, and Priscilla’s long history as a working creative and teacher, I have underlined an idea or suggestion on almost every page.
Minding the Muse is a practical handbook for the artist or writer—highly experienced, aspiring, or somewhere in between. Long draws from her extensive background as a poet, writer, and master teacher, but also gathers the insights and practices of a wide range of high-achieving artists, including mystery writer Raymond Chandler, choreographer Twyla Tharp, poet and performance artist Patti Smith, and the painter Joan Miró. Beginning with the first sparks of artistic creation—“Gathering, Hoarding, Conceptualizing”—Long moves through the various stages to “Completing Works” and “Poet as Peddler, Painter as Pusher: Marketing.” Every creative worker will find something here to take to…
The start of my own online teaching business in 2010 felt both liberating and frustrating. I enjoyed working for myself but struggled to make my offers unique, attractive, sustainable, and successful. I had no idea how to make my voice heard in the highly-saturated and fast-growing online teaching industry. Following the advice of famous online business gurus, I lost track of what I wanted my business to accomplish and burned out following every online teaching trend there was. The books I’ve selected helped me align with my own vision and values, inspired me to overcome my limitations and succeed on my own terms.
Austin Kleon writes short and concise tips to help you stay creative when you hit a wall, lose motivation, or are about to quit. When you work online and don’t see the immediate results of your labor translated into a cushy bank balance, it’s tempting to stop practicing and doing things that seem ineffective. Austin shares some of his creative practices that help him overcome the funk, focus on the process rather than results and set healthy boundaries to keep the work going. The book is small and easy-to-digest, peppered with the author’s own drawings. Open on any spot and be encouraged for the new day!
The world is crazy. Creative work is hard. And nothing is getting any easier!
In his previous books - Steal Like an Artistand Show Your Work!, New York Times bestsellers with over a million copies in print combined - Austin Kleon gave readers the key to unlock their creativity and then showed them how to share it. Now he completes his trilogy with his most inspiring work yet.
Keep Going gives the reader life-changing, illustrated advice and encouragement on how to stay creative, focused, and true to yourself in the face of personal burnout or external distractions. Here is how…
I began exploring the topic of creativity after my mother’s death in 2010. Mom was an extremely creative woman. The mother of ten children, living in poverty, she was a self-taught artist who managed to beautify her simple home with her art, building a home business selling paintings, woodcarvings, wall hangings, and quilts she created. When I began speaking to groups of women about creativity, I was shocked to discover just how few of them saw themselves as creative. Thus began my odyssey into creativity research and therapeutic art, and the resulting book and workshops that inspire and encourage others to discover their creative self.
This book is perfect for anyone who likes to see research that supports what they believe. There’s science behind the study of creativity and Wired to Create does an excellent job explaining it. Based on psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman’s groundbreaking research, this book offers a glimpse inside the “messy minds” of highly creative people. Kaufman and Carolyn Gregoire study the latest findings of neuroscience and psychology, and the practices of well-known “creatives,” concluding that we are all, in some way, wired for creating, and everyday life presents endless opportunities to express that.
Is it possible to make sense of something as elusive as creativity?
Based on psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman’s groundbreaking research and Carolyn Gregoire’s popular article in the Huffington Post, Wired to Create offers a glimpse inside the “messy minds” of highly creative people. Revealing the latest findings in neuroscience and psychology, along with engaging examples of artists and innovators throughout history, the book shines a light on the practices and habits of mind that promote creative thinking. Kaufman and Gregoire untangle a series of paradoxes— like mindfulness and daydreaming, seriousness and play, openness and sensitivity, and solitude and collaboration –…
I strive to inspire others through my writing, yoga card decks, and workshops; therefore, I’m passionate about finding inspiration and passing it on to others. For me discovering a dose of wise counsel or learning how someone else endured and overcame challenging times is a lifeline…especially when I feel hopelessly stuck. These 5 books are a balm for the soul, quieting the negative self-talk long enough to clear a path to joy, optimism, and creativity. I hope these recommendations bring the same sense of inspiration for you…just when you need it most!
This wise and wonderful little book humorously holds up a mirror to the self-sabotaging techniques that can snap a fledgling idea right off the vine. (Procrastination, anyone?) Each page features “advice,” along with hilarious illustrations, on how not tobe creative, and has me ROTFLMAO with recognition. Here are some faves: “Smoke a lot of dope for inspiration. Forget why it’s called dope. Forget your inspirations.” “Compare your work to the masterworks of the great masters.” “The minute you have an idea, ask yourself: How much cold, hard cash is it worth?” “Take seriously every negative thing anyone says.” (To wit, “That ain’t art, sister.”) With a wink and the perfect amount of reverse psychology, this whimsical book skillfully catapults me out of a creative funk!
In How to Avoid Making Art, the bestselling author of The Artist's Way delivers a (tongue-in-cheek!) guide to doing anything and everything you possibly can to avoid making art. Anyone who is engaged in a creative pursuit will no doubt identify with these wonderful cartoons by award-winning artist Elizabeth Cameron of creative wannabes doing everything except actually getting down to work.
"For most people creativity is a serious business," says Julia Cameron. "They forget the telling phrase 'the play of ideas' and think that they need to knuckle down and work more. Often, the reverse is true. They need to…
My journey into art began as a serendipitous discovery that unfolded through curiosity. As a “can’t-be-tamed” creative, I understand the tug-of-war artists feel – craving to learn skills and create “quality” pieces, while also thumbing the snooze-fest of sticking to one thing. Been there, done that, got the paint-splattered t-shirt. This has ignited a passion for encouraging others to find their own creative voice, as I've navigated the same path while building a multifaceted career in watercolor, gouache, line drawing, urban sketching, brush lettering, and calligraphy…need I go on? The thing is, I will because there is still so much to be explored.
I think this book is perfect to address creative ruts, when we feel like we’ve explored all the usual avenues of inspiration. I love that it’s interactive with a mix-and-match prompt system.
It provides a breath of fresh air and aligns with how I love to generate random drawing prompts. I love discovering a new combination of prompts, pushing me out of my comfort zone and into creative territories I hadn't dared to venture before.
It's not just a book; it's a companion for those moments when the blank page seems daunting.
A unique mix-and-match book that generates thousands of ideas for tackling a blank sketchbook page
Designed to kickstart creativity for artists and hobbyists, the pages of this book are divided into three separate sections that can be flipped, mixed, and matched to generate more than 100,000 unique sketchbook prompts! Jennifer Orkin Lewis, author of Draw Every Day, Draw Every Way and 100 Days of Drawing, has gained a dedicated following on Instagram by posting her daily sketches. The Sketchbook Idea Generator begins with an introductory section, in which Jennifer provides examples of her work as well as insight into her…
