Fans pick 100 books like The Power Of Regret

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 loved this book because it builds from the sadness of a life taken far too young to the beauty of deep reflections on the meaning of life, love, and loss. Paul Kalanithi was a brilliant neurosurgeon just completing his years of training when he was diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer.

Kalanithi, a new father, wrote much of this book while he was dying. As a writer myself, this book caused me to wonder if I could be so open about my reality, in a book or any other form, while dying. I do not know the answer, but I treasure the experience of having read a book that raised such a powerful stirring in myself. Like the other books I recommend, Kalanithi’s memoir is a gift from the book Gods.

I decided to read this book after watching Dr. Pausch’s presentation about his last lecture before his death and the advice he would give on achieving your childhood dreams. The video had gone viral, and it strongly resonated with me.

What I love about this book is it shows how one can live a fulfilling life while facing difficult circumstances. It showed me how one can accomplish one’s dreams in sometimes unexpected ways.

Ranjay Gulati delves—dare I say—deeply into the significance of purpose-driven organizations in today's business landscape.

The book emphasizes how cultivating a strong, authentic purpose can lead to exceptional performance and long-term success.

What I loved is that Gulati highlights that purpose is not just a tagline but rather a dynamic, guiding force that drives innovation, collaboration, and resilience. He shows how it can help decision-making.

Gulati shares several compelling case studies and practical tools that helped me affirm my position on the concept of organizational purpose. If you’re passionate about transformative leadership, Deep Purpose will inspire you to create meaningful impact in your organization.

I read this book at a time when I was contemplating changes in my life but a little stuck in my direction. The title interested me because I was getting older, and I certainly didn’t want to get to my senior years wishing I had done more.

I loved this book because it gave me a swift kick in the butt to live life to the fullest now, not later. It taught me to stop wasting time. The hopes and desires I kept pushing to the sidelines all the time now became my priorities. 

This is a book about (social) identity and how our understanding of self is derived from the social groups we are part of.

Two brilliant psychologists, Jay Van Bavel and Dominic Packer, use their own research and insights from social psychology and neuroscience to explain how identity really works and how it influences our thinking and doing every single day.

The book really makes you think about how our social nature impacts on all kinds of decision-making, and it will give you new ideas and insights about power and influence. 

Oh boy, this monumental book certainly expanded my empathetic mind! The greatest lesson? The fact that true empathy requires a compassionate response. That was an eye-opener! This book has really stuck with me. I remember being entrenched and enthralled with every page while on a writing retreat. I can’t thank the author enough for helping me fine-tune my own books about the empathic experience!

Similar in tone to her well-known The Language of Emotions, this book doesn’t dive too deeply into metaphysical perspectives. Instead, this book is primarily grounded in psychology, history, and science. That is the very reason why we highly sensitive souls benefit from books like these; we are admittedly gullible and easy to manipulate if our empathy is uncontrolled! Understanding our abilities through a grounded psychological lens such as this is crucial for our emotional understanding.

Are you stewing about regrets, disappointments, and perceived “mistakes” you’ve made? It’s hard to treat yourself well if you are berating yourself for things you did or didn’t do in the past. This book guides you through proven tools to process what happened. It will help you let go of resentments so you can move on with your life. Once you let go, you can treat yourself better.

Marshall Goldsmith provides a powerful guide for anyone seeking a higher purpose in their personal and professional life.

Goldsmith draws on his experience as a world-renowned executive coach to provide practical advice and exercises aimed at helping readers live a life aligned with their overarching purpose, regardless of the eventual outcome.

Taking inspiration from Buddhism, Goldsmith reveals that the key to living an earned life, unbound by regret, requires committing to a habit of earning and connecting that habit to something greater than the isolated achievements of careerism.

With illuminating stories from Goldsmith's legendary career,  this book provides a roadmap for ambitious people seeking to close the gap between what they plan to achieve and what they actually get done, and to avoid the trap of existential regret that reroutes destinies and persecutes memories.

Being someone who often ponders life's "what ifs," I was quick to snap this novel up. The plot revolves around a suicidal woman, Nora Seed, who finds herself in a mysterious library between life and death, where each book serves as a portal to a different version of her life had she made alternative choices.

Though the story shares thematic elements with traditional time travel narratives—such as the exploration of alternate realities—it’s not time travel in the strictest sense. Instead, it has a dreamlike quality that offers a clever means to explore the deeply personal and relatable concept of self-discovery.

As Nora samples all the different lives she could’ve lived, I couldn’t help but reflect on my own life choices and the paths I didn't take…and be grateful for the ones I did.