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Books I Have Read More Than Once
17
items A re-read is the only honest review, so this is not a list of books I own or meant to finish. It is the ones I have actually gone back to. Mostly psychology and memoir, plus one novel I return to every couple of years for reasons I cannot defend. If ...
The book that started this whole profile, since someone bought it from an early list of mine. It is repetitive and occasionally insufferable and I still come back to it. The core idea takes about forty pages, the rest is drilling it in until it final...
The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
I have no rational defence for re-reading this. It is quiet, sad, and not a great deal happens, and I still go back every couple of years. If you only know the surreal Murakami, this is the one where he leaves the talking cats at home.
Norwegian Wood: Haruki Murakami, Jay Rubin - Books
Dense, occasionally heavy going, worth every page. It explains why trauma shows up in the body rather than only in your thoughts, which was the piece I had been missing. Not a light read, do not start it on holiday.
The Body Keeps The Score | Bessel van der Kolk, MD.
The one productivity book that survived my scepticism, because it is practical rather than inspirational. The section on making a habit obvious and easy has done more for me than every planner I have ever bought. Skim the anecdotes, keep the systems.
Atomic Habits: Tiny Changes, Remarkable Results by James Clear
Short, brutal, and the only book I have pressed on more than five people. Written by a psychiatrist who survived the camps and came out arguing that meaning is something you choose rather than stumble across. It permanently reframes complaining, whic...
Man's Search for Meaning: Frankl, Viktor E.
Slow going and worth finishing. It explains why you are confidently wrong about things, which is uncomfortable and extremely useful. Read it in chunks.
Thinking, Fast and Slow: Kahneman, Daniel
If you have spent your career being told to speak up more, this reframes the whole thing. It is the book I have given to the most people who did not ask for a book.
Quiet: Power of Introverts in a Noisy World
Attachment styles explained without the jargon. It will make you recognize your own patterns within about thirty pages, and then you cannot unsee them.
The New Science of Adult Attachment
A bit stern and occasionally smug, and he is right. The argument that uninterrupted attention is now a rare skill has aged frighteningly well.
Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success
A neurosurgeon writing about his own terminal diagnosis. Short, beautifully written, and I have never got through it dry eyed. Not a comfortable read, an important one.
When Breath Becomes Air: Pulitzer Finalist
The translation matters enormously here, so get this one. A Roman emperor talking himself out of being annoyed, which turns out to be evergreen.
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, Gregory Hays
People either love this or find it insufferable and I have been both, several years apart. Short enough that you can find out for yourself in an afternoon.
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
A memoir about growing up without schooling and ending up with a Cambridge doctorate. It is not really about education, it is about what leaving your family costs.
Educated by Tara Westover
Broad, confident, occasionally too confident, and it will still rearrange how you think about money, religion and why anyone agreed to farming.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari
The examples are cringeworthy and the framework works. It changed how I handle disagreement more than any management book I have read.
Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life
Sentimental and I do not care. A novel about the lives you did not live, and it lands hardest if you have been quietly auditing your own choices.
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig
Narrated by an artificial friend who does not quite understand what she is describing, which is the whole trick. Quiet and it stays with you for weeks.
Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro