Here are 100 books that Small Talk fans have personally recommended if you like
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After 37 years of being undiagnosed with ADHD, I was so grateful to get my diagnosis! Once I had an inkling that I had ADHD, I began devouring books about it :-) The books in this list are five of many that have helped me understand myself and my brain, and I want to help others have access to them and to the inspiring, affirming, and empowering self-knowledge they provide! These books will help you figure out if you might have an ADHD brain and then, from there, help you work with and celebrate that brain.
I love this book by well-known YouTuber Jessica McCabe. It summarizes some of the key ideas that the author shares in her YouTube channel. What remains is an inspiring, empathetic, and insightful guide to having an ADHD brain. As Jessica tells us, don’t just try harder; try different.
'Jessica McCabe changed my life for the better with her kind, bright and thoroughly researched ADHD videos - and now with her book, she just might change yours too' KAT BROWN, AUTHOR OF IT'S NOT A BLOODY TREND: UNDERSTANDING LIFE AS AN ADHD ADULT
'The world of ADHD has been waiting for this book' DR EDWARD HALLOWELL, NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING CO-AUTHOR OF ADHD 2.0 AND DRIVEN TO DISTRACTION
**From the host and creator of the award-winning HOW TO ADHD YouTube channel**
In How to ADHD, Jessica McCabe reveals the insights and tools that have…
After 37 years of being undiagnosed with ADHD, I was so grateful to get my diagnosis! Once I had an inkling that I had ADHD, I began devouring books about it :-) The books in this list are five of many that have helped me understand myself and my brain, and I want to help others have access to them and to the inspiring, affirming, and empowering self-knowledge they provide! These books will help you figure out if you might have an ADHD brain and then, from there, help you work with and celebrate that brain.
This book is a fun way to get inside the head of a teen girl with ADHD! I love reading books with characters with ADHD, and I love reading romance, so this book is my happy place. :-) Mazey Eddings does an awesome job of portraying the mental loops an ADHD brain can get into and how to overcome them through connecting with the right others and working towards becoming one's authentic self.
Tilly in Technicolor is Mazey Eddings's sparkling YA debut about two neurodivergent teens who form a connection over the course of a summer.
Tilly Twomley is desperate for change. White-knuckling her way through high school with flawed executive functioning has left her burnt out and ready to start fresh. Working as an intern for her perfect older sister’s start up isn’t exactly how Tilly wants to spend her summer, but the required travel around Europe promises a much-needed change of scenery as she plans for her future. The problem is, Tilly has no idea what she wants.
After 37 years of being undiagnosed with ADHD, I was so grateful to get my diagnosis! Once I had an inkling that I had ADHD, I began devouring books about it :-) The books in this list are five of many that have helped me understand myself and my brain, and I want to help others have access to them and to the inspiring, affirming, and empowering self-knowledge they provide! These books will help you figure out if you might have an ADHD brain and then, from there, help you work with and celebrate that brain.
This book provides a super engaging memoir about a famous comedian who learned she had ADHD! This woman’s story is so relatable and authentic that I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to better understand their ADHD and how someone else experiences it, too!
'Intensely personal, highly educational and very funny' - Adam Kay
'Some brains, through no fault of their own, pack a bag, turn the lights off and run away to the seaside the moment they are meant to be doing homework, paying bills or not putting the cat in the fridge. These are ADHD brains. I have one and believe they are as common as being left-handed, flat footed or genuinely enjoying anchovies on a pizza.
Undiagnosed Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder made my life a frustrating, maddening rollercoaster. I had very little focus except when…
After 37 years of being undiagnosed with ADHD, I was so grateful to get my diagnosis! Once I had an inkling that I had ADHD, I began devouring books about it :-) The books in this list are five of many that have helped me understand myself and my brain, and I want to help others have access to them and to the inspiring, affirming, and empowering self-knowledge they provide! These books will help you figure out if you might have an ADHD brain and then, from there, help you work with and celebrate that brain.
This book is a lovely and practical guide since it communicates information about ADHD easily using visuals. It is an excellent choice for someone who wants to learn more about ADHD and is a visual learner! I also enjoy this book's "day in the life" theme, where it tackles ADHD-related issues and challenges as they arise throughout a day in the life of an ADHDer.
An inclusive guide to ADHD that explores its diverse types, symptoms, diagnoses, and misconceptions, and shares how to work with your ADHD brain to fully understand yourself.
Diagnosed at 29, Alice Gendron offers full and supportive insight into life with ADHD, addresses common challenges and hurdles, and provides tips and ADHD hacks that will help you to get things done and live a more peaceful daily life. This illustrated and informative guide is a must-have for anyone looking to better understand ADHD and how to thrive with ADHD.
Through Gendron’s motivational voice and relatable illustrations, The Mini ADHD Coach will…
Ever since I can remember, I’ve been fascinated with life and death. As a child, my own life was fairly mundane and even joyful. However, I went through loss like most. We lost two dogs when I was maybe seven or nine. Then my beagle Suzy, who we had the longest, was struck by a car on a rainy day. A few years later, my grandfather passed from cancer. Watching my mother grieve stuck with me. It shaped me—how I cared about life, how I longed to understand it. Once I decided to write stories for children, I knew it could be a safe place to explore my hidden feelings.
Sunny is one of four books in Reynold’s Track series. Each focuses on a member of the team. Sunny is extremely likable with his quiet voice and big—boomtickaboomboom—heart. He is home-schooled and raised by his father after his mother died in childbirth. Sunny’s journey is accepting that he did not kill her. It’s a poignant story told with the lyrical charm that belongs to Jason Reynolds.
Sunny tries to shine despite his troubled past in this third novel in the critically acclaimed Track series from National Book Award finalist Jason Reynolds.
Ghost. Patina. Sunny. Lu. Four kids from wildly different backgrounds, with personalities that are explosive when they clash. But they are also four kids chosen for an elite middle school track team—a team that could take them to the state championships. They all have a lot to lose, but they all have a lot to prove, not only to each other, but to themselves. Sunny is the main character in this novel, the third of…
In my 20s, after always doing what I was “supposed” to, I found myself trapped in a relationship I wanted out of, in a job that barely paid the bills, and in a mindset of scarcity. After my birth control almost killed me, I dove into the mind-body connection that’s often stifled by sexism and societal expectations, becoming fascinated with pushing against the status quo and living more adventurously. I realized I needed to sincerely take my life decisions into my own hands. Since then, I’ve run ultramarathons, become an entrepreneur, and taught countless menstruators how to listen to their own bodies so they can build a life they love.
It shook me to discover I was living by 2 of the 5 “good girl myths” (“Logic” and “Perfection”) when I could be using evidence-backed design principles to create my life on my own terms.
One takeaway? In the beginning stages of starting my first business, I’d throw every ounce of energy into creating a “perfect” finished product before even telling anyone a project was coming. When launch day came, nobody would buy. I was so frustrated investing time, money, and energy into projects that wouldn’t take off.
Majo’s book taught me the value of “prototyping.” Just like professional designers, engineers, and inventors need to create a minimally viable product to validate the idea, I can do so in all areas of my life. What’s the smallest step forward I can take toward a goal right now that I can afford to lose from? That’s entrepreneurial thinking.
"A must-read for any woman who is ready to design a life on her own terms." - Sophia Amoruso, Founder and CEO, Girlboss
Women: it's time to break the good girl myths that are holding you back and share your true gifts with this groundbreaking book from Stanford University-trained designer and women's leadership expert Majo Molfino.
For thousands of years, women have been taught to be "good" instead of powerful. But when we embody the good girl, we hold back their voices and gifts in a world that desperately needs female perspectives.
Drawing on countless coaching sessions and conversations with…
Since I began reading seriously (albeit late in life!), I’ve been seduced by the travails of underdog protagonists trying to save their own lives through transformation. If you had told me when I was a teenager—drinking too much, racing muscle cars, and scraping by with Ds and Cs in a vocational high school—that I would end up teaching writing at a university, I would’ve said you were nuts. It wasn’t until I started college in my mid-twenties that I actually read a novel for the pleasure of it. My novel and short story collection are expressions of my cheering on the young underdogs who bravely fight to change their worlds despite all odds.
In a heartfelt story of redemption, Deanna Lambert was labeled the school slut after her father caught her having car sex with a high school boy. Unforgiven and dejected in a smothering, gossip-fueled small town, Deanna faces the people she least wants to face in a moving attempt to outlive her past, with no help offered by her dysfunctional parents and a sister overwhelmed with young motherhood. I loved the gorgeous realism of this book, fueled by the deep intimacy Zarr creates with her sincere, frank-hearted, narrator.
Sara Zarr's lyrical debut novel--a National Book Award finalist--has been adapted for TV!
I was thirteen when my dad caught me with Tommy Webber in the back of Tommy's Buick. Tommy was seventeen and the supposed friend of my brother, Darren.
I'm not sure I even liked him.
In a moment, Deanna Lambert's teenage life is changed forever. Struggling to overcome the lasting repercussions and the stifling role of "school slut," Deanna longs to escape a life defined by her past. With subtle grace, complicated wisdom, and striking emotion, Story of a Girl reminds us of our human capacity for…
As a breast surgeon who’s had breast cancer three times, I’ve had my share of knocks along the way. A friend once asked me to speak to her nursing colleagues about how I had coped, and I immediately thought of my books. The ones I read on repeat at night to get me through the weekly wobbles. To remind me to have fun and that life is for living. They’re not too serious, some of them have a lot of swearing (sorry Dad), and everyone I’ve leant them to has thanked me for knowing exactly what was going on inside their head. I hope they do the same for you.
I’m a people-pleaser. I can’t say ‘No’ to anyone and in the past it has destroyed me.
This book reminds us all that we only have a limited amount of time, energy, and money and we should only spend them on things that make us happy and don’t annoy us. We need to stop caring what other people think. We can’t make everyone like us but we can make them respect us, and there is a way to get off going to your great uncle’s 90th birthday without being rude.
'The best book I have read recently . . . Absolutely blinding. Read it. Do it.' Daily Mail
The bestselling book everyone is talking about - our favourite anti-guru Sarah Knight reveals the surprising art of caring less and getting more.
Are you stressed out, overbooked and underwhelmed by life? Fed up with pleasing everyone else before you please yourself? Then it's time to stop giving a f**k.
This irreverent and practical book explains how to rid yourself of unwanted obligations, shame, and guilt - and give your f**ks instead to people and things that make you happy.…
Of all my university courses, the one that had the greatest impact on me was called "Informal Logic." Accurate, but misleadingly dry and academic. One of the assignments in that course—and the one I remember most, of all my university assignments—was to prepare a "Crapbook": a collection of ten bits of crap—ads, arguments, whatever—that were full of crap (essentially, incorrect reasoning/logical fallacies). I loved it. So when, twenty years later, I was hired by a small university to teach Critical Thinking …
I initially thought McElroy's title referred to the counterargument to 'the reasonable man' standard in legal reasoning—the view that, given the sexism in our society, what is reasonable for a man to think is not the same as what is reasonable for a woman to think (classic example: it's reasonable for a woman to think that a man who is following her may have assault in mind; a man who is similarly followed might reasonably think the man wants to ask for directions). However, re-reading the preface, I see that she is responding to, and rejecting, the view that women are unreasonable. Excellent! Not only is this book a good guide to critical thinking, it has the added value of being "framed for women" (Joan Kennedy Taylor).
Have you, as a woman, ever felt frustrated while engaged in a discussion on some important topic? Do you feel constrained when attempting to express your ideas and views to others? Do you find yourself at a loss for words? Have you been labeled "unreasonable" by the men in your life? Have you been told you are too emotional or that women just tend to be that way? Well, help is on the way!
Wendy McElroy has broken through the wall of sexual stereotyping to offer the perfect guide to help women recognize their mental power, learn to reason effectively,…
I have always felt like a bit of a misfit. I was taller, bigger, and clumsier than the other kids. I listened to the wrong music, wore the wrong clothes, and read the wrong books. I wasn’t cool. And when I became a high school teacher, I saw many kids, especially young women, who I could see felt the same. When Young Adult literature came into its own, I really loved all the wonderful ways YA stories were telling the stories of the kids who didn’t fit in, and it made me want to read them, and eventually write one of my own.
Dumplin’ charmed me from the first sentence. The beauty pageant culture, which seems at times both earnest and absurd, is the perfect setting for a book starring a sassy, smart, daring heroine who won’t be sidelined because of a little thing like size. I adore the band of misfits Dumplin’ gathers around her, the amazing drag queens, the homage to Dolly Parton, and the triumphant, realistic, hopeful ending.
#1 New York Times Bestseller For fans of John Green, Rainbow Rowell, and Sarah Dessen comes this powerful novel with a fearless heroine-self-proclaimed fat girl Willowdean Dickson-from Julie Murphy, the acclaimed author of Side Effects May Vary. With starry Texas nights, red candy suckers, Dolly Parton songs, and a wildly unforgettable heroine, Dumplin' is guaranteed to steal your heart. Dubbed "Dumplin'" by her former beauty queen mom, Willowdean has always been at home in her own skin. Her thoughts on having the ultimate bikini body? Put a bikini on your body. With her all-American beauty best friend, Ellen, by her…
