Authors Christmas Recommendations 2023 - Part II
Welcome to part II of a special series of posts in the run up to the holiday season! I asked some of the lovely authors that have previously appeared on the site about their Christmas book recommendations for this year. They graciously replied with some fantastic book picks! Hopefully these book recommendations might help you with your own Christmas shopping gift ideas too! :-)
Q. Is there a smart thinking book that you are looking forward to reading this Christmas, or one you would like to give or receive as a gift?
Rebecca Giblin
Oh great question – for sure it’s Richard Schwartz’s No Bad Parts, which shows us the same techniques we can use to heal our inner wounds can also work to heal the causes of our broader social problems.
No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model
Review from Bookshop.org:
Is there some part of yourself that you wish would go away? Most of us would say yes, whether we call it addiction, the inner critic, “monkey mind,” neurosis, sinfulness, bad habits, or some other disparaging name. Yet what if there were a different way to approach these aspects of yourself that leads to true healing instead of constant inner struggle? With No Bad Parts, Dr. Richard Schwartz teaches a revolutionary paradigm of understanding and relating with ourselves - a method that brings us into inner harmony, enhances self-compassion, and opens the doors to spiritual awakening.
Dr. Schwartz is the creator of Internal Family Systems (IFS), a paradigm-changing model of consciousness that has been transforming psychology for decades. Here, you’ll learn why IFS has been so effective in areas such as trauma recovery, addiction therapy, depression, and more. IFS overturns the idea that we have one “true” identity and recognizes that having multiple parts is not a pathology, but a normal and healthy function of the human mind. Dr. Schwartz shares insights and practices to help you recognise your own “inner family” of parts, understand how each part seeks to help and protect you even when it seems problematic, engage in inner dialogue to restore balance and self-love - and deepen your awareness of the higher Self that holds and encompasses every facet of your diverse consciousness.
Buy On:
Easons €23.79 Bookshop.org UK £16.14 Bookshop.org US $18.59 Blackwells £12.99 Waterstones £16.99 Wordery $18.97(All links earn commission from purchases. Prices accurate at time of writing)
Chokepoint Capitalism: How Big Tech and Big Content Captured Creative Labor Markets and How We'll Win Them Back
Review from Bookshop.org:
A call to action for the creative class and labour movement to rally against the power of Big Tech and Big Media.
Corporate concentration has breached the stratosphere, as have corporate profits. An ever-expanding constellation of industries are now monopolies (where sellers have excessive power over buyers) or monopsonies (where buyers hold the whip hand over sellers) - or both.
Scholar Rebecca Giblin and writer and activist Cory Doctorow argue we're in a new era of 'chokepoint capitalism', with exploitative businesses creating insurmountable barriers to competition that enable them to capture value that should rightfully go to others. All workers are weakened by this, but the problem is especially well illustrated by the plight of creative workers.
By analysing book publishing and news, live music and music streaming, screenwriting, radio, and more, Giblin and Doctorow deftly show how powerful corporations construct 'anti-competitive flywheels' designed to lock in users and suppliers, make their markets hostile to new entrants, and then force workers and suppliers to accept unfairly low prices.
In the book's second half, Giblin and Doctorow explain how to batter through those chokepoints, with tools ranging from transparency rights to collective action and ownership, radical interoperability, contract terminations, job guarantees, and minimum wages for creative work.
Chokepoint Capitalism is a call to workers of all sectors to unite to help smash these chokepoints and take back the power and profit that's being heisted away - before it's too late.
Buy On:
Easons €15.39 Bookshop.org UK £10.41 Bookshop.org US $25.06 Blackwells £9.99 Waterstones £10.99 Wordery $13.91(All links earn commission from purchases. Prices accurate at time of writing)
Rafa Euba
The book I would like to read this Christmas is The Rest is History, by Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook
The Rest is History: The Official Book from the Makers of the Hit Podcast"
Review from Bookshop.org UK:
Make room Herodotus, stand down Bede, pipe down Pepys – there’s a new history book in town.
From the chart-topping podcast The Rest is History, a whistle-stop tour through the past – from Alexander the Great to Tolkien, the Wars of the Roses to Watergate. The nation’s favourite historians Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook take on the most curious moments in history, answering the questions we didn’t even think to ask:
- Did the Trojan War actually happen?
- What was the most disastrous party in history?
- Was Richard Nixon more like Caligula or Claudius?
- How did a hair appointment almost blow Churchill’s cover?
- Why did the Nazis believe they were descended from Atlantis?
Whether it is sending historical figures to Casa Amor in a series of Love Island, ranking history’s most famous eunuchs and pigeons (including Winkie, the unsung hero of the Second World War), or debating the meaning of greatness, there is nothing too big or too small for Tom and Dominic to unpick.
So run your Egyptian milk bath, strap up your best Spartan sandals, and prepare for a journey down the highways and byways of the human past. . .
Buy On:
Easons €26.59 Bookshop.org UK £18.04 Bookshop.org US $30.03 Blackwells £18.99 Waterstones £14.99 Wordery $24.04(All links earn commission from purchases. Prices accurate at time of writing)
You are not meant to be happy. So stop trying!
Review from Amazon:
Our DNA doesn’t want to make us happy. It prefers to keep us forever anxious about potential threats and in need of new rewards that will never quite satisfy us. Our biological self is naturally unhappy, as the 10th century Caliph of Córdoba discovered when he counted the days he had felt happy in his whole life and found they amounted to only 14.
Through a series of conversations with his patients – some funny, others poignant – Rafa Euba reflects on the futility of chasing happiness as a goal, while accepting that money, pills, sex and food sometimes make this quest more agreeable. Yet, even then, the so-called “Paradox of Hedonism” stops us from enjoying ourselves too much, and not even our dreams at night offer respite from our biologically-determined unhappiness.
The author looks for evidence of happiness in the workings of our brain, in our mythology, and in even in fairy tales, but can’t find any. He also looks for it in self-help books, but concludes that their vacuous optimism can’t possibly lead to a state of emotional contentment. This is because however hard we may try to govern our emotions, they will inevitably remain mixed and messy. Happiness is a myth, an ethereal ghost that inhabits our brain only as an abstract idea.
Rafa Euba is a seasoned psychiatrist, who can’t help constantly pondering about the flaws and wonders of human nature, even when he should be doing other things.
Buy On:
Amazon £8.99(All links earn commission from purchases. Prices accurate at time of writing)
Eileen Horne
I would say The Book of Joy - because heaven knows we all need some in these dark days!! A real gift of wisdom.
The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World
Review from Bookshop.org UK:
Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama have been friends for many, many years. Between them, they have endured exile, violence and oppression. And in the face of these hardships, they have continued to radiate compassion, humour and above all, joy.
To celebrate His Holiness's eightieth birthday, Archbishop Tutu travelled to the Dalai Lama's home in Dharamsala. The two men spent a week discussing a single burning question: how do we find joy in the face of suffering?
This book is a gift from two of the most important spiritual figures of our time. Full of love, warmth and hope, The Book of Joy offers us the chance to experience their journey from first embrace to final goodbye.
Buy On:
Easons €14.29 Bookshop.org UK £14.24 Bookshop.org US $25.11 Blackwells £14.99 Waterstones £9.99 Wordery $18.97(All links earn commission from purchases. Prices accurate at time of writing)
Gwen Adshead
I am hoping that someone will buy me We were made for these times by Kaira jewel Lingo…a Buddhist practitioner who writes beautifully about resilience … goes well with Eileen’s choice!
We Were Made for These Times: Ten Lessons on Moving Through Change, Loss, and Disruption
Review from Bookshop.org :
In ten concise chapters, you'll learn powerful ways to meet life's challenges with wisdom, resilience, and ease.
We all go through times when it feels like the ground is being pulled out from under us. What we relied on as steady and solid may change or even appear to vanish. In this era of global disruption, threats to our individual, social, and planetary safety abound, and at times life can feel overwhelming. Not only are loss and separation painful, but even positive changes can cause great stress.
Yet life is full of change: birth, death, marriage, divorce; a new relationship; losing or starting a job; beginning a new phase in life or ending one. Change is stressful, even when it is much desired or anticipated--the unknown can feel scary and threatening. In We Were Made for These Times, the extraordinary mindfulness teacher Kaira Jewel Lingo imparts accessible advice on navigating difficult times of transition, drawing on Buddhist teachings on impermanence to help you establish equanimity and resilience.
Each chapter in We Were Made for These Times holds an essential teaching and meditation, unfolding a step-by-step process to nurture deeper freedom and stability in daily life. Time-honored teachings will help you develop ease, presence, and self-compassion, supporting you to release the fear and doubt that hold you back.
Buy On:
Easons €19.59 Bookshop.org UK £13.29 Bookshop.org US $13.90 Blackwells £13.45 Waterstones £13.99 Wordery $17.71(All links earn commission from purchases. Prices accurate at time of writing)
The Devil You Know : Encounters in Forensic Psychiatry
Review from Bookshop.org:
Dr Gwen Adshead is one of Britain's leading forensic psychiatrists. She treats serial killers, arsonists, stalkers, gang members and other individuals who are usually labelled 'monsters'. Whatever their crime, she listens to their stories and helps them to better understand their terrible acts of violence. Here Adshead invites the reader to step with her into the room to meet twelve patients and discover how minds can change. These men and women are revealed in all their complexity and shared humanity. Their stories make a powerful case for rehabilitation over revenge, compassion over condemnation. The Devil You Know will challenge everything you thought you knew about human nature.
Buy On:
Easons €12.31 Bookshop.org UK £10.44 Bookshop.org US $17.66 Blackwells £9.99 Waterstones £10.99 Wordery $13.91(All links earn commission from purchases. Prices accurate at time of writing)
Richard Fisher
Can I suggest The Truth Detective by Alex O'Brien? Alex is a poker player, but this is far more than a book about how to play the game - it's a lens for navigating uncertainty, unknowns, and life in general. By mixing personal experience at the poker table with psychology and science, she provides readers with a whole new perspective, which can help you make better decisions.
The Truth Detective: A Poker Player's Guide to a Complex World
Review From Bookshop.org UK:
This is a book about getting to the truth.
At the poker table you need certain skills to win. The more Alex O'Brien played competitively, the more she realised those skills are essential in everyday life too. From reading body language to calculating risk, dealing with uncertainty and separating emotion from facts, her toolkit will help you make better decisions and understand what's happening around you.
Offering insights from the latest psychology, neuroscience, game theory and more, you'll encounter new ideas and ways of thinking from pioneering researchers and experts in their field. With O'Brien as your guide, you'll learn to see clearly, think carefully and cut through the noise of a complex world.
Buy On:
Easons €23.80 Bookshop.org UK £16.14 Bookshop.org US $21.34 Blackwells £14.44 Waterstones £16.99 Wordery $21.51(All links earn commission from purchases. Prices accurate at time of writing)
The Long View: Why We Need to Transform How the World Sees Time
Description from Bookshop.org:
A wide-ranging and thought-provoking exploration of the importance of long-term thinking.
Humans are unique in our ability to understand time, able to comprehend the past and future like no other species. Yet modern-day technology and capitalism have supercharged our short-termist tendencies and trapped us in the present, at the mercy of reactive politics, quarterly business targets and 24-hour news cycles.
It wasn't always so. In medieval times, craftsmen worked on cathedrals that would be unfinished in their lifetime. Indigenous leaders fostered intergenerational reciprocity. And in the early twentieth century, writers dreamed of worlds thousands of years hence. Now, as we face long-term challenges on an unprecedented scale, how do we recapture that far-sighted vision?
Richard Fisher takes us from the boardrooms of Japan - home to some of the world's oldest businesses - to an Australian laboratory where an experiment started a century ago is still going strong. He examines the psychological biases that discourage the long view, and talks to the growing number of people from the worlds of philosophy, technology, science and the arts who are exploring smart ways to overcome them. How can we learn to widen our perception of time and honour our obligations to the lives of those not yet born?
Buy On:
Easons €35.00 Bookshop.org UK £23.75 Bookshop.org US $38.68 Waterstones £19.99 Wordery $25.32(All links earn commission from purchases. Prices accurate at time of writing)
Sales Is Easy - if you just know how!
Are you ready to take the sales in your business to the next level?
If so Charlie Day is here to show you how. Not only that, but she will also teach you how to sell the right way with ease, confidence and integrity. In this book Charlie Day will help you; - Feel confident in your messaging - Nail your marketing - Create the perfect pitch - Teach you to close a sale - Follow up like your life depends on it - And have a compelling up-sell In this practical guide to making more sales, Charlie breaks down each step into actionable advice. Her light-hearted approach to sales and her fun and high-energy advice leaves you feeling motivated and ready to make more sales. Charlie uses her own experience to show you how to multiply the sales in your business. She is down-to-earth, honest and straight to the point, you'll finish this book with a heap of takeaways and ready to make some sales.
Buy On:
Blackwells £17.99 Waterstones £15.99(All links earn commission from purchases. Prices accurate at time of writing)
Make Money Online: Your no-nonsense guide to passive income
Review from Bookshop.org:
Are you time-poor but want to be money-rich?
Business strategist, entrepreneur, #1 podcaster and global speaker Lisa Johnson is here to guide you through the world of passive income. No complicated plans or tech troubles; just a simple step-by-step approach using Lisa's simple system to earning money either as a side hustle or as your main business, without ever trading time for money.
Covering EVERYTHING you need to know from how to think of an initial idea, develop it, grow an engaged audience, get into a productive groove, launch your product, generate sales and maintain a consistent income from your product, Lisa takes you through it all, with lots of guaranteed laughs along the way! This will be a book you turn to time and again for motivation, inspiration and practical business advice.
Buy On:
Easons €23.80 Bookshop.org UK £16.14 Bookshop.org US $23.24 Blackwells £16.99 Waterstones £16.99 Wordery $21.51(All links earn commission from purchases. Prices accurate at time of writing)
Huge thanks to Rebecca, Rafa, Eileen, Gwen, Richard, & Lisa for their great Christmas book picks!
Watch out next week for Part III (Read Part I here) of the series next week with more author recommendations :-)
Daryl
Image Copyrights: Sounds True Inc (No Bad Parts), Scribe Publications (Chokepoint Capitalism), Bloomsbury Publishing PLC (The Rest Is History), Crux Publishing (You are not meant to be happy), Cornerstone (The Book Of Joy), Parallax Press (We Were Made For These Times), Faber & Faber (The Devil You Know), Profile Books Ltd (The Truth Detective), Headline Publishing Group (The Long View), Authors & Co (Sales Is Easy), Hodder & Stoughton (Make Money Online).
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