Fans pick 100 books like The Power of Now

I’ve read this book over and over and highlighted something new every time. Somehow, through the lens of Nazi death camps, Frankl validates everyone’s suffering, including my own. I’ve always known that suffering is an inescapable part of the human experience, but this helped me understand that to the brain, it isn’t relative in the ways I always thought.

Furthermore, this book helped me understand that my coping mechanisms inform suffering’s hold on me. Stories are a coping mechanism, and I learned that redirecting my attention and creating my personal narratives around what is meaningful to me rather than the source of pain is key to the cage of suffering. This book changed how I understand the importance of purpose and the power of what I build my stories around. 

I think this is one of the most wonderfully whimsical and beautiful books. I love the message of hope and strength you get from it, and I also love the deeper meanings given through allegory.

I enjoyed this book’s breadth, but incredible spiritual depth and it also made me look at his other books. I also liked that it’s not necessarily a happy ending, and yet, on another level, it is. I learnt a lot from this book and I know others who say the same.

I think I learned the most about allegory and symbolism from this book. I also loved the protagonist's exciting and perilous journey, which inspired me to learn about spirituality and the unknown.

I loved the fact that this book is accessible to anyone, no matter what they believe, and I liked how you could take your own messages from its pages. I enjoyed the beautiful scenes the author creates, which on their own can influence faith.

I first discovered The Rose and the Yew Tree while searching for novels about irreparable rifts between once-close friends. I always seek out books that resonate, thematically, with any current emotional challenge that I have. At the time, I had just been sent the most vicious communication I’ve ever received in my life from someone I’d believed was a close friend. Her letter accused me of two things I hadn’t done, and I was absolutely floored by it. 

Later, once I’d calmed down, I reread the WhatsApp messages I’d sent her in response to her letter, explaining that she was mistaken and that I had not done the things she’d accused me of. I was shocked by my own panicked and subservient tone. I recognised the palpable fear in my words, and I realised that I’d had only one goal at the time: to ward off further attack. 

So, I… show more.

This book caught my attention because it involves a house-sitter, just as my series does. But Morag’s story could not be more different. It depicts a terrible sequence of events arising from an innocent house-sitting assignment and a growing love for the place, which I as a reader very much shared. The house itself becomes both the setting and the main threat to the well-being of the ‘half-broken’ characters. The story is hauntingly compelling, the characters deeply likeable, and the writing a real delight. This has been one of my great favourites ever since I first read it.

This book, and a couple of seminars with Byron Katie, really did change my life! I was stuck in negative thinking and couldn’t seem to get out of it. She offers a straightforward method to challenge your thoughts and turn them around to other possibilities. It‘s almost magical how your hurtful beliefs can be changed into accepting “the way it is” without the hurt.

Get this book and get some relief from whatever is bothering you. Truly.

Everybody knows Ahab, but do you know Bartleby? It’s a strange story about a strange man, which, of course, attracts me. Bartleby is a lawyer’s copyist who decides he doesn’t want to do this sort of writing anymore and meets every instruction with the words: I would prefer not to. You can read Bartleby as simply a humorous tale. Or you can read it as a story of the existential crisis most writers, myself included, face at one time or the other. Melville was feeling dissatisfied with his choice of a writing career—the critics were unfriendly—and, in my opinion, the title character reflects this. It’s also, in my view, an implicit critique of economic control in America—my SDS youth would approve! It’s not for nothing that the story’s final words are: “Ah Bartleby! Ah humanity!”

I love this book!  I’ve returned to it many times over the years. It’s my rock. It contains a series of questions and responses of students in dialogue with the well-known Indian sage Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj. His teachings are direct, down-to-earth, and very timely, in that they address matters of continued importance to all of us: the nature of reality, suffering, mind, body, agency, fear, happiness, peace…and pretty much every truth you can think of!  It’s 550 pages of unadulterated wisdom.   

I completely had my perspective literally turned upside down and reframed by this book. I could not stop thinking about how interesting the idea that everyone is yourself is. I learned about empathy and experienced a huge shift in my consciousness because of this book.

I also loved the spiritual adventure and the journey. I am always inspired by seeing other people’s perspectives, and this book is a whole deep dive into a better understanding of how to see them.

This book is the number one book I’d bring along if stranded on a desert island. Like my magickal friend Stephanya once said, “I rejoice that such a beautiful thing can spring from the brain of a human being!” I couldn’t agree more. This book begins with a story documenting the author’s psychedelic research as a Harvard professor (then known as Richard Alpert), as well as his adventures in India, where he met his mountaintop Guru, Neem Karoli Baba. Ram Dass would soon become a Guru himself and help introduce Western spiritual seekers to deep mysticism and Eastern philosophy.

So, why is this relevant to empaths, even those who aren’t into psychedelics? The reason is simple: every part of this book, most especially the profoundly artistic “brown pages,” deeply, acutely, and spiritually reminds us that separation is an illusion, that we are all one, and we need to live in… show more.