The books

108 self-help books, read properly and judged honestly. The ones marked free are on this site in full. The rest are in the app.

Worth reading 28

• Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents

  Lindsay C. Gibson

  Useful enough to explain your family, tempting enough to make you the newest problem in it.

• Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

  Anne Lamott

  Turns perfectionists into beginners. The later miracle where beginners become good is sold separately.

• Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle

  Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski

  The crisis is over. Your nervous system would like that in writing.

• Deep WorkFree to read

  Cal Newport

  Read it if your workday is mostly proving you were online.

• Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence

  Anna Lembke

  Make bad habits annoying enough for laziness to save you from yourself.

• Enough: Your Health, Your Weight, and What It's Like to Be Free

  Oprah Winfrey and Ania M. Jastreboff

  Your body defends its weight. Medicine can quiet hunger. The manufacturer rents you the quiet by the month.

• Four Thousand Weeks

  Oliver Burkeman

  Read it if productivity advice has become your least productive hobby.

• Hidden Potential

  Adam Grant

  Start before you feel ready. Apparently panic counts as a learning environment.

• I Will Teach You to Be Rich

  Ramit Sethi

  Automate savings on payday, then spend what remains. Your landlord mastered this technology years ago, and nobody calls him disciplined.

• Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

  Robert B. Cialdini

  Useful if strangers keep talking you into warranties. Dangerous if your job starts with, “Real quick question.”

• Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions

  Johann Hari

  Maybe you are not broken. Your job and childhood remain persons of interest.

• Maybe You Should Talk to Someone

  Lori Gottlieb

  Therapy helps you spot the pattern. It does not stop you dating it again.

• Money for Couples: No More Stress. No More Fights. Just a 10-Step Plan to Create Your Rich Life Together

  Ramit Sethi

  A couple makes a budget. Six people attend: two adults and four parents who were not invited.

• On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

  Stephen King

  King’s big secret is daily work, which is awful news if you already bought the notebook and felt the hardest part was behind you.

• Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

  Susan Cain

  Introverts aren't broken. They're recovering from people who think out loud.

• Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World

  David Epstein

  A crooked career can pay off when the old skills finally work together. Until then, it is unemployment with an inspiring narrator.

• Steal Like an Artist

  Austin Kleon

  Good for anyone waiting to feel original. Bad for anyone enjoying the wait.

• Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention, and How to Think Deeply Again

  Johann Hari

  Your focus is under attack. Naturally, the attackers send notifications.

• Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don't Know

  Malcolm Gladwell

  This book is smart about why we misread strangers, then a badge enters the room and gets diagnosed with poor communication.

• The Algebra of Wealth

  Scott Galloway

  Earn steadily, automate the boring parts, and never let a man shouting into a podcast turn your rent into his commission.

• The Almanack of Naval Ravikant

  Eric Jorgenson

  Get rich by owning things, then become too serene to enjoy the shopping.

• The Body Keeps the ScoreFree to read

  Bessel van der Kolk

  The danger left years ago. The alarm system has tenure.

• The Courage to Be DislikedFree to read

  Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga

  Stop auditioning for approval. The judges are also screaming at self-checkout.

• The Meaning of Your Life: Finding Purpose in an Age of Emptiness

  Arthur C. Brooks

  Useful for people who have optimized everything except being alive.

• The Psychology of MoneyFree to read

  Morgan Housel

  Good money advice for anyone who turns one bad Tuesday into a thirty-year investment strategy.

• The Simple Path to Wealth

  J. L. Collins

  Excellent plan. Its main risk factor is the investor.

• The War of Art

  Steven Pressfield

  A useful kick against procrastination, followed by the claim that invisible cosmic forces are worried about your screenplay.

• Untamed

  Glennon Doyle

  Useful permission to stop pleasing everyone, followed by the idea that wanting something is the same as knowing what the hell you are doing.

Overrated, but useful 42

• 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to ChaosFree to read

  Jordan B. Peterson

  Useful advice, delivered as if your laundry has endangered Western civilization.

• Atlas of the Heart

  Brené Brown

  Useful if every feeling comes out as “fine” and somebody else ends up apologizing.

• Atomic HabitsFree to read

  James Clear

  The best first habits book. By your fourth, the habit is buying habits books.

• Attached

  Amir Levine and Rachel Heller

  A useful guide to romantic panic. You will recognize yourself, feel sick, and start reading it aloud to someone who has already left.

• Beyond Anxiety: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Life's Purpose

  Martha Beck

  Make the painting. Keep the therapist. The painting has no idea what is happening either.

• Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

  Elizabeth Gilbert

  A permission slip for making bad art before fear buys another notebook.

• Build the Life You Want

  Arthur C. Brooks and Oprah Winfrey

  Useful tools for managing your reaction, less useful when the problem is a person who knows your passwords.

• Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High

  Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler

  Start with facts. Your theory about their childhood can wait.

• Daring Greatly

  Brené Brown

  Vulnerability is courage, until the person listening controls your dental plan.

• Die with Zero: Getting All You Can from Your Money and Your Life

  Bill Perkins

  Spend it while your knees still cooperate. Your adult children can waste their own money.

• Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World

  Cal Newport

  Delete the apps for a month. Your family may ask who the new person is.

• Feel-Good Productivity

  Ali Abdaal

  You get more done when you stop motivating yourself like a Victorian orphan caught resting.

• How to Reparent Your Inner Child

  Nicole LePera

  Raise the child inside you. Apparently adulthood now comes with custody.

• Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy LifeFree to read

  Héctor García and Francesc Miralles

  A reason to wake up, plus the upsetting news that friends and vegetables help.

• Life in Three Dimensions

  Shigehiro Oishi

  Read it if nothing is wrong, but you have started describing errands as plans.

• Lifespan: Why We Age, and Why We Don't Have To

  David A. Sinclair with Matthew D. LaPlante

  Aging may be treatable. The supplement aisle has taken that as a yes.

• Meditations for Mortals

  Oliver Burkeman

  Life will never be under control. Please finish accepting this by Friday.

• MindsetFree to read

  Carol S. Dweck

  Effort matters, but a hamster works hard too, and nobody gives him the factory.

• Never Split the DifferenceFree to read

  Chris Voss with Tahl Raz

  Excellent listening advice. Slight concern about why you need it weaponized.

• Outliers

  Malcolm Gladwell

  The self-made man is a group project with one name on the cover.

• Same as Ever

  Morgan Housel

  The future changes. Fear, greed, and confident idiots keep perfect attendance.

• Self-Compassion

  Kristin Neff

  Stop using self-hatred as a productivity app. Its reviews are terrible.

• Set Boundaries, Find Peace

  Nedra Glover Tawwab

  Useful scripts for saying no. Best for people who treat someone else's sigh like a warrant.

• Show Your Work!

  Austin Kleon

  Show the process. Total obscurity is already working perfectly.

• So Good They Can't Ignore You

  Cal Newport

  Get good enough to buy freedom. Management may buy more of you instead.

• Start With Yourself: A New Vision for Work & Life

  Emma Grede

  Useful on ambition and trade-offs. Less useful when the advice arrives with staff.

• Stop Letting Everything Affect You

  Daniel Chidiac

  Useful until every difficult person becomes a diagnosis with shoes.

• Supercommunicators

  Charles Duhigg

  Useful for anyone who hears a feeling and starts drafting solutions.

• The 4-Hour WorkweekFree to read

  Tim Ferriss

  Cut what changes nothing, write down what repeats, and stop paying adults to prove that other adults are still typing.

• The Age of Magical Overthinking: Notes on Modern Irrationality

  Amanda Montell

  Familiar psychology, memorable confessions, and the comforting news that your worst decisions have professional names.

• The Anxious Generation

  Jonathan Haidt

  We made playgrounds harmless, then gave every middle-schooler a global scoreboard for their face.

• The Balancing Act: Creating Healthy Dependency and Connection Without Losing Yourself

  Nedra Glover Tawwab

  Useful if asking for help feels worse than quietly resenting everyone.

• The Book of Alchemy: A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life

  Suleika Jaouad

  Useful prompts for people who buy notebooks, then protect them from thoughts.

• The Creative Act: A Way of Being

  Rick Rubin

  Creativity is mostly noticing things, then not strangling them in committee.

• The Miracle Morning

  Hal Elrod

  Six sensible habits, one deranged deadline. Keep what helps before breakfast starts feeling like a parole condition.

• The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work

  John Gottman and Nan Silver

  Love survives on tiny moments. Bad news for anyone currently saying, “In a minute.”

• The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ckFree to read

  Mark Manson

  Blunt common sense with swearing. Useful if saying no still feels like something requiring legal counsel.

• The Total Money Makeover

  Dave Ramsey

  Excellent on getting out of debt. When it expects investments to earn 12 percent a year, the calculator starts backing toward the door.

• The Willpower Instinct

  Kelly McGonigal

  Shame is terrible self-control. It heckles the driver, then grabs the wheel.

• Thinking, Fast and SlowFree to read

  Daniel Kahneman

  Brilliant. You will diagnose everyone except yourself.

• Why We Remember

  Charan Ranganath

  Your memory loses the receipt, invents the total, then gets angry when somebody checks the math.

• You Are a Badass

  Jen Sincero

  Great at starting you. Less reliable when the Universe handles your finances.

Skip it 38

• Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art

  James Nestor

  Breathe through your nose. Keep your mouth for snacks and regrettable opinions.

• Can't Hurt MeFree to read

  David Goggins with Adam Skolnick

  Excellent on excuses. Less convincing on whether knees are optional.

• Eat That Frog!

  Brian Tracy

  Do the important, awful thing first. Your color-coded avoidance can wait.

• Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less

  Greg McKeown

  A guide to saying no, bought by people who just said yes to another self-help book.

• Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

  Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

  Give the brain enough trouble and it briefly stops manufacturing its own.

• Getting Things Done

  David Allen

  Turns vague dread into clearly labeled, professionally organized dread.

• Good Energy

  Casey Means with Calley Means

  Sensible health advice, until breakfast acquires metrics and a compliance department.

• Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

  Angela Duckworth

  Talent gets applause. Grit keeps practicing after the neighbor starts pricing soundproofing.

• How to Know a Person

  David Brooks

  Listening works. Give someone thirty uninterrupted seconds and they may reveal they were nervous, not arrogant. Terrible news for the tiny courtroom in your head, which already convicted them and broke for lunch.

• How to Win Friends and Influence PeopleFree to read

  Dale Carnegie

  Basic decency, suspiciously organized for sales.

• Indistractable

  Nir Eyal

  Useful, familiar advice from a man who once taught companies to build habit-forming apps. The burglar recommends a lock.

• Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus

  John Gray

  A filing system for couples with two folders, Male and Female, and nowhere to put “hungry, tired, and furious about the thermostat.”

• Nonviolent Communication

  Marshall B. Rosenberg

  Four steps for conflict, because “you’re selfish” is not technically a feeling.

• Outlive

  Peter Attia with Bill Gifford

  Four sensible habits, pursued with the calm restraint of a man trying to fistfight death.

• Rich Dad Poor DadFree to read

  Robert T. Kiyosaki

  One useful money lesson, stretched until it can sell you another lesson.

• Shift: Managing Your Emotions, So They Don't Manage You

  Ethan Kross

  Useful when you are furious, because anger can remember a coworker’s comma from 2018 but not one coping skill.

• Slow Productivity

  Cal Newport

  Good advice, provided your boss accepts the existence of limits.

• Start with Why

  Simon Sinek

  Start with why it matters. Solid rule. Then every sandwich shop decides lunch is a movement and the cashier is liberating humanity with pickles.

• The 5 AM Club: Own Your Morning, Elevate Your Life

  Robin Sharma

  Wake at five and become extraordinary. Bedtime quietly did all the work.

• The 5 Love LanguagesFree to read

  Gary Chapman

  Useful vocabulary for affection. Useless paperwork for avoiding chores.

• The 5 Types of Wealth

  Sahil Bloom

  Useful if your career is thriving and the rest of you is in witness protection.

• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective PeopleFree to read

  Stephen R. Covey

  Useful, dated, and about four times longer than its best ideas.

• The Art of Spending Money

  Morgan Housel

  Money should buy freedom. We bought trim levels.

• The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity

  Julia Cameron

  One excellent exercise, eleven weeks of spiritual admin.

• The Comfort Crisis

  Michael Easter

  We eliminated hardship so thoroughly that a cold shower now feels like being drafted.

• The Compound Effect

  Darren Hardy

  Motivation gives a speech in the driveway. Routine is already inside, moving the couch.

• The Let Them TheoryFree to read

  Mel Robbins

  Let them make the bad decision. Your unpaid supervision was not helping.

• The Millionaire Next Door

  Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko

  Looking rich is expensive. Being rich is mostly avoiding the costume.

• The Mountain Is YouFree to read

  Brianna Wiest

  Self-sabotage is protection with terrible judgment.

• The ONE Thing

  Gary Keller and Jay Papasan

  Do the hardest thing first, and by 9:15 you've opened one spreadsheet and started talking like you survived something.

• The Power of HabitFree to read

  Charles Duhigg

  A useful habit loop that proves your afternoon cookie was loneliness with chocolate chips.

• The Power of NowFree to read

  Eckhart Tolle

  You are not the voice in your head. Good, because it has terrible judgment.

• The Wealth Ladder

  Nick Maggiulli

  Turns out I had an income problem. I responded by making appetizers feel irresponsible.

• Tiny Experiments

  Anne-Laure Le Cunff

  Try one small thing before buying the identity and matching water bottle.

• Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything

  BJ Fogg

  Makes flossing one tooth feel heroic, then leaves the other thirty-one to middle management.

• We Can Do Hard Things: Answers to Life's 20 Questions

  Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach, and Amanda Doyle

  Useful in a crisis, repetitive in peacetime, dangerously fond of affirmations.

• Why We SleepFree to read

  Matthew Walker

  Great if you neglect sleep. If bedtime already scares you, this book gives your panic homework.

• Your Money or Your Life

  Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez

  Price every purchase in work hours. The little treat now comes with a timesheet.

The rest of this book is in the app.

Skip the Book reads the self-help books so you don't have to: what each one argues, what happened when real people tried it, which claims are exaggerated, and what to do tonight. 108 books and counting, new ones most days.

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