100 books like Shattered Assumptions

It was my research on creativity that led me to study workplace abuse.

Surprisingly, there are remarkable similarities among targets of bullying; most salient, they tend to shake the status quo at work while exploring and offering novel solutions to institutionalized problems. Unfortunately, as Grant details in his research, instead of embracing these innovators as forecasters of the future, organizations attempt to silence and minimize their contributions.

However, creatives are not in it for the money or accolades, but for the love of the game and dedication to the mission, thus when they are forced to bow to tradition and play smaller than who they were born to be, they exit the stifling work environment, thus further stagnating an already lagging work culture.

In this book, Grant brilliantly hails the power of the creative to both change our minds and change the world, urging institutions to give them space to… show more.

As a narrative inquiry researcher, I study stories of people who have experienced a shared phenomenon, such as workplace bullying, sexual assault, or a natural disaster. Almost without exception, the initial plotlines are ones of devastation.

Over the years, I have attempted to come to a deeper understanding of where the hurt resides. Cohen answers that question, documenting for the reader how our desire to be a contributing member of a community is at the center of our striving, and how the surest way to wound another is by pushing them outside the inner circle. The cruelest of all acts is to revoke someone’s belonging to their community, and more tragically, themselves.

In Cohen’s masterful book, he shares stories and details the research on why our need to belong is an essential ingredient of being human and offers the reader fruitful ways to form more meaningful connections. 

As a workplace bullying researcher, my bookshelves are filled with hundreds of books specifically and adjacent to the topics of workplace abuse, toxic environments, creative cultures, and destructive leadership.

Of all the books I have read on the topic, Duffy’s and Sperry’s is the best. Coming from both a research and clinical perspective, they clearly lay out the causes, significance, and often tragic fallout of workplace abuse.

In addition, they bring the concept of mobbing, a term more often used in Europe, to the United States, detailing the trauma that ensues when a group of people joins forces, exhibiting the predatory behavior of pack animals, with the shared mission to denigrate the target’s reputation and drive her out of a job.

Most importantly, after offering the reader a rich education on toxic group dynamics, they give specific strategies survivors can use to heal and eventually thrive in the workplace. 

A book on quitting may seem like a downer to end my list of recommendations, but if that is what you think, you’ve got quitting all wrong.

Quitting is not about endings, but about clearing the page so there is space to write the next story. In this thought-jostling book, Duke brings the reader into the lives of notable characters who stayed in the game too long and the high price they paid for not walking away.

Throughout her engaging narratives, she infuses research on why we hang on too long and offers reflective questions to get us out of the muck. Threaded amongst the chapters are life lessons disguised on quips like when we quit on time, it likely feels like we are giving up too early, and when it looks like a tie between sticking it out and cutting our losses, we are almost always better walking away.… show more.

Ken McLaughlin approaches vulnerability and victim culture from what I think is a new perspective. The idea of victimhood culture and people seeing themselves as vulnerable was commonplace when he was writing his book. Looking at victims as ‘survivors’ he reveals how the victims may see themselves. McLaughlin looks at examples from social work and elsewhere to show that in therapy culture, the constant need for recognition and respect for vulnerable identities is both empowering and yet socially isolating. People may celebrate the fact that their victim status has been respected and they have ‘survived,’ but this leaves them unable to form any connection with others. A set of victims cannot be a community as it requires constant external validation.

Karen has written about mother-daughter dynamics for decades. Her willingness to share stories from her own life, as well as the women she’s helped over the years, adds a lot of heart to the content of this book.

My favorite element of this book was Karen’s visual exercise of letting go and healing generational trauma and shame. Similar to what I’d explore with a client in therapy, these visualizations are empowering and bring hope to adult daughters wanting to heal themselves with or without their mom being a part of their life.

I recommend Singelin's PTSD, an adult fiction graphic novel that skillfully portrays the haunting realities experienced by war veterans.

Everyone at some point is confronted with adversity. PTSD shows that people are capable of actions they never believed possible. As someone who is all too familiar with these struggles, I found Jun's journey relatable and real. Jun unveils the impact of camaraderie, compassion, and companionship. This narrative powerfully emphasizes the significance of support for those enduring trauma. 

This was the first book I read that put into words my own experiences.

Though Levine does not discuss religious trauma, his explanation of complex and developmental trauma allowed me to easily draw parallels to what I experienced. Additionally, he is comprehensive in his education but makes it easy for the reader to understand.

This also, for me, led to a significant decrease in shame by simply being able to know what was happening in my body and recognize that there was not something wrong with me but rather, that my body and nervous system was doing exactly what it was created to do to keep me alive. 

This book integrates neurobiology in understanding trauma, childhood abuse, and dissociation. It offers cutting-edge therapeutic techniques to help me replace my shame, self-loathing, and guilt attached to my abuse as a child.

Fisher integrates multiple strategies, such as sensorimotor psychotherapy, internal family systems, and mindfulness-based therapies, to help survivors replace dissociation with self-love and acceptance—a must-read for anyone struggling to stay present and make connections after surviving childhood abuse.

A powerful parent dies and each of his adult children reacts in startling and unexpected ways -- and his grieving widow in the most surprising way of all. This is an “everything” book. It took over my life. It overwhelmed my brain and mind. The utterly believable characters so generously intermingled and interwoven, familial and dynamic in their pushing and pulling, loving and hating - ignited by a precipitating event so abrupt yet simple, with consequences that spin out of control. Reading this tale, you feel as if you are drowning in a fever dream - Joyce Carol Oates once again as she has since Them (1969), offering innumerable reasons for wonderment.