100 books like The Status Seekers

It’s hilarious and cringey at the same time to read this honest look at status anxiety. It’s hilarious to watch others seek status. As for yourself, you hopefully relieve your cringing because you see how status has obsessed people throughout history. 

The author says we seek the love of the world as well as the love of a partner. The quest can ruin an otherwise good life, so he offers solutions. I love his explanation of the original “Bohemians.” They were the hipsters of the 19th century! They created those impressionist paintings we love because they were aching for status.

The author is a famous British philosopher who inherited a fortune. He sees that money does not relieve status anxiety. But he misses the real reason: because we’ve inherited the brain of status-seeking animals (as explained in all of my books). 

He sums it up in one brilliant sentence: 

“Envy is the only one of the 7 deadly sins that isn’t fun.”

The author is a great observer of the snobbery that surrounds you in daily life, from fashion snobs to intellectual snobs. He’s a “snobographer,” according to one reviewer.

This book invites you to laugh at the snobs, not to change your thinking. Pointing fingers feels good in the short run, but my books show that it hurts you in the long run. We all have the one-upping impulse because we’re all mammals. If you hate people who do this, you end up hating yourself. You may insist that you don’t care about status, but moral superiority is just more one-upping.

So enjoy with caution.

Bourgeois Bohemians sneer at expensive cars, but they spend much more renovating their bathrooms. They are eager to make a statement against consumerism, but they are also eager to let you know how successful they are. I grew up around this thinking, so I love to hear the forbidden thoughts expressed publicly.

Brooks explains the inner conflict of bobos. They feel guilty about their success, so they call attention to their solidarity with the common man. They want to keep achieving, but don’t want to appear that way.

Brooks misses the deeper engine of this inner conflict: all mammals seek status in their herd or pack or troop because it promotes “reproductive success.” Natural selection built a brain that rewards you with serotonin when you raise your status.

A thick science book on envy is just what we need to help us release this feeling. The author looks at “Man the Envier” in an anthropological way. He shows how diverse cultures have struggled to manage this natural impulse, even using “black magic.” That may sound crazy, but my Italian ancestors did this. They believed that suffering is caused by malocchio—the evil eye from a person who envies you.

I like this book because it shows how humans create envy inside themselves. You may not want to see inside yourself. It’s easier to dream that the perfect society that will relieve your envy. But you make yourself powerless when you do that because you can’t control society. You are better off building your power over your emotions, as my books explain.

My Big Welcome illustrates how kindness can help children overcome anxiety when they’re starting at a new school, moving, meeting new people. The story introduces a number of classroom situations that a newcomer might face. Emilia, the new girl, is welcomed with warmth and kindness. And the bright illustrations give off such a positive vibe.

I must have listened to this on audiobook a hundred times in 2000 when I had to drive hundreds of miles a week up and down the UK for my job until I felt as if the author’s words and message were seared into my brain!

It’s written in an easy conversational style, with practical examples from the author’s experience, and every idea in it is simple and easy to use in your own life. This book helped me through a difficult time and made me realise for the first time that I actually wasn’t alone or in any way weird, and that most people struggle with their fears.

To this day, I still tell myself, “I’ll handle it!” when I’m faced with a difficult or scary task!

Last but not least is Get Out of My Head, written by my friend and Pinterest’s Chief of Staff for TwentyTwo, Meredith Arthur. This book not only talks about overthinking and anxiety, it also delves into other important topics such as perfectionism, people-pleasing, and knowing and understanding oneself. The book has great content, plus it is visually beautiful—Meredith’s background at Pinterest definitely shows in the book’s amazing artwork and overall aesthetic. 

I am an anxious achiever. In fact, I’m an overachiever with a diagnosed anxiety disorder.

The great thing about this book is that, while it’s no substitute for the medications and therapy we anxiety sufferers may need, it helps us see that we’re not alone; moreover, that we can succeed not just despite our anxious personality, but because of it.

Good things happen, says Morra Aarons-Mele, “when we learn to manage anxiety and take advantage of its hidden gifts.” In other words, we can lean in (to our fear) and conquer. If you’re like me, well versed in the ways of an edgy brain, skip straight to Part Two, which offers a powerful toolset for managing anxiety at work.

I love Untangle because it does exactly what the title says! People suffering through panic attacks, agoraphobia, or other anxiety-related conditions are often completely confused by what’s happening in their bodies and mind. Josh and Dean did a tremendous job of providing a friendly, easy-to-understand explanation of the mechanisms that drive panic and anxiety. If you’re struggling with panic attacks or other anxiety problems and not sure why or what to do about it, this book is a great place to start learning!

I love this small book. Often with anxiety reading lengthy, complicated, medicalized books are overwhelming when anxiety is thumping us in the head. This book is accessible, and you don’t sit there and think, ‘Gawd, I’m only on page 12 and there are 436 other pages to go. How am I going to get through it?’ It’s a really good starting point when you’re not sure why you’re feeling anxious but need some foundation knowledge about what’s going on. The people that have written it know what they’re talking about, our experts in their field but it doesn’t feel preachy or patronizing.