Bookshelf
Every book mentioned across the site, gathered here in one place. They’re not all “calming” reading exactly – some are dense, some are two thousand years old, one or two even argue with each other – but they’re where to go next if a page here has caught your interest and you want more than a paragraph can give you.
The list is split into four sections by the author’s surname – pick the range that covers the name you’re after. Or use the sortable table further down the page if you’d rather browse by title or author directly.
| Title ⇅ | Author ⇅ | |
|---|---|---|
| Humour, Seriously | Jennifer Aaker and Naomi Bagdonas | → |
| Journal to the Self | Kathleen Adams | → |
| Never Let Go | Suzanne Alderson | → |
| I Am Not Sick, I Don't Need Help! | Xavier Amador | → |
| Meditations | Marcus Aurelius | → |
| Cognitive Behavior Therapy: Basics and Beyond | Judith Beck | → |
| The Middlepause: On Turning Fifty | Marina Benjamin | → |
| How to Be Sick | Toni Bernhard | → |
| The Novel Cure | Ella Berthoud & Susan Elderkin | → |
| The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook | Edmund Bourne | → |
| Radical Acceptance | Tara Brach | → |
| Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul | Stuart Brown | → |
| Four Thousand Weeks | Oliver Burkeman | → |
| Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy | David Burns | → |
| You Are Not a Diagnosis | Tanya Byron | → |
| The Worry Trick | David A. Carbonell | → |
| What Doesn't Kill Us | Scott Carney | → |
| Atomic Habits | James Clear | → |
| The Alignment Problem | Brian Christian | → |
| The Sound Book | Trevor Cox | → |
| Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience | Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi | → |
| Anchored | Deb Dana | → |
| The New Breed | Kate Darling | → |
| Emotional Agility | Susan David | → |
| The Heart of Yoga | T.K.V. Desikachar | → |
| Self-Therapy | Jay Earley | → |
| The Comfort Crisis | Michael Easter | → |
| Motherless Daughters | Hope Edelman | → |
| Gut | Giulia Enders | → |
| Silence: How to Find Inner Peace in a Busy World | Christina Feldman | → |
| Touch | Tiffany Field | → |
| Tiny Habits | BJ Fogg | → |
| Celebration of Discipline | Richard Foster | → |
| Altered Traits | Daniel Goleman & Richard J. Davidson | → |
| This Naked Mind | Annie Grace | → |
| The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober | Catherine Gray | → |
| Beyond Biofeedback | Elmer & Alyce Green | → |
| Mind Over Mood | Dennis Greenberger & Christine Padesky | → |
| RHS Your Wellbeing Garden | Alistair Griffiths & Matthew Keightley | → |
| The Anxious Generation | Jonathan Haidt | → |
| 10% Happier | Dan Harris | → |
| The Happiness Trap | Russ Harris | → |
| Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion | Sam Harris | → |
| The Art of Living: Vipassana Meditation as Taught by S.N. Goenka | William Hart | → |
| A Liberated Mind | Steven Hayes | → |
| Moving On: Breaking Up Without Breaking Down | Suzie Hayman | → |
| The Scent of Desire | Rachel Herz | → |
| Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat | Hal Herzog | → |
| The Wim Hof Method | Wim Hof | → |
| The Obstacle Is the Way | Ryan Holiday | → |
| The Universal Sense | Seth Horowitz | → |
| Protocols | Andrew Huberman | → |
| The Varieties of Religious Experience | William James | → |
| Wherever You Go, There You Are | Jon Kabat-Zinn | → |
| How to Age | Anne Karpf | → |
| Loving What Is | Byron Katie | → |
| Blue Spaces | Catherine Kelly | → |
| The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up | Marie Kondo | → |
| The Rise of Superman | Steven Kotler | → |
| Listening to Prozac | Peter Kramer | → |
| Be More Human | Sir Norman Lamb | → |
| Waking the Tiger | Peter Levine | → |
| This Is Your Brain on Music | Daniel Levitin | → |
| The Orphaned Adult | Alexander Levy | → |
| Forest Bathing | Qing Li | → |
| Touch: The Science of Hand, Heart, and Mind | David J. Linden | → |
| DBT Skills Training Manual | Marsha Linehan | → |
| Cure | Jo Marchant | → |
| Heal and Move On: Seven Steps to Recovering from a Break-Up | Andrew G. Marshall | → |
| The Mind-Gut Connection | Emeran Mayer | → |
| I'm Fine (But Not Really) | Dr Peter Meades | → |
| Poverty Safari | Darren McGarvey | → |
| The Humor Code | Peter McGraw & Joel Warner | → |
| The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook | Matthew McKay, Jeffrey Wood & Jeffrey Brantley | → |
| Yoga Nidra | Richard Miller | → |
| Co-Intelligence | Ethan Mollick | → |
| The Myth of the Chemical Cure | Joanna Moncrieff | → |
| Together | Vivek Murthy | → |
| Self-Tracking | Gina Neff & Dawn Nafus | → |
| Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art | James Nestor | → |
| Digital Minimalism | Cal Newport | → |
| Blue Mind | Wallace J. Nichols | → |
| The Ritual Effect | Michael Norton | → |
| Drugs Without the Hot Air | David Nutt | → |
| Couch Fiction | Philippa Perry | → |
| Such Stuff as Dreams | Keith Oatley | → |
| How to Do Nothing | Jenny Odell | → |
| Made for Each Other | Meg Daley Olmert | → |
| Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less | Alex Soojung-Kim Pang | → |
| The Extended Mind | Annie Murphy Paul | → |
| Expressive Writing: Words That Heal | James Pennebaker & John Evans | → |
| How to Be a Stoic | Massimo Pigliucci | → |
| How to Change Your Mind | Michael Pollan | → |
| How to Break Up with Your Phone | Catherine Price | → |
| The Power of Fun | Catherine Price | → |
| Get Some Headspace | Andy Puddicombe | → |
| Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain | John Ratey | → |
| How to Think Like a Roman Emperor | Donald Robertson | → |
| The Cancer Whisperer | Sophie Sabbage | → |
| Musicophilia | Oliver Sacks | → |
| Goodbye, Things | Fumio Sasaki | → |
| Guided Imagery for Groups | Andrew E. Schwartz | → |
| No Bad Parts | Richard Schwartz | → |
| Getting Past Your Past | Francine Shapiro | → |
| Lifespan | David Sinclair | → |
| Trick or Treatment | Simon Singh & Edzard Ernst | → |
| Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice | Mark Singleton | → |
| Winter Swimming | Susanna Søberg | → |
| Talking the Tough Stuff with Teens | Fiona Spargo-Mabbs | → |
| The Well-Gardened Mind | Sue Stuart-Smith | → |
| Searching for Normal | Sami Timimi | → |
| Deep Medicine | Eric Topol | → |
| Alone Together | Sherry Turkle | → |
| Why Losing Your Job Could Be the Best Thing That Ever Happened to You | Eleanor Tweddell | → |
| The Body Keeps the Score | Bessel van der Kolk | → |
| Suggestible You | Erik Vance | → |
| The Good Life | Robert Waldinger & Marc Schulz | → |
| Why We Sleep | Matthew Walker | → |
| Recovering from Redundancy: A Guide to Surviving a Layoff | Adrian Warner | → |
| Money: A User's Guide | Laura Whateley | → |
| The PTSD Workbook | Mary Beth Williams & Soili Poijula | → |
| The Nature Fix | Florence Williams | → |
| Tender | Penny Wincer | → |
| Overcoming Anticipatory Anxiety | Sally M. Winston and Martin N. Seif | → |
| The Sleep Solution | W. Chris Winter | → |
| Therapy 101 | Jeffrey C. Wood & Minnie Wood | → |
| The Nightmare and Sleep Disorder Toolkit | Courtney Worley, Michael Nadorff & Brigitte Holzinger | → |
| Ritual: How Seemingly Senseless Acts Make Life Worth Living | Dimitris Xygalatas | → |
| Staring at the Sun | Irvin Yalom | → |
| Reinventing Your Life | Jeffrey Young | → |
| Hold Me Tight | Sue Johnson | → |
| Loneliness | John Cacioppo | → |
| It’s OK That You’re Not OK | Megan Devine | → |
| Grief Works | Julia Samuel | → |
| The Paradox of Choice | Barry Schwartz | → |
| How to Decide | Annie Duke | → |
| From Strength to Strength | Arthur Brooks | → |
| The 100-Year Life | Lynda Gratton | → |
| The Invisible Woman | Helen Walmsley-Johnson | → |
| This Chair Rocks | Ashton Applewhite | → |
| How to Fund the Life You Want | Robin Powell | → |
| Ambiguous Loss | Pauline Boss | → |
| With the End in Mind | Kathryn Mannix | → |
| The Sleep Book | Guy Meadows | → |
| Say Good Night to Insomnia | Gregg Jacobs | → |
| Where Memories Go | Sally Magnusson | → |
| Who Cares | Emily Kenway | → |
| The Imposter Cure | Jessamy Hibberd | → |
| The Secret Thoughts of Successful Women | Valerie Young | → |
| The Definitive Guide to the Perimenopause and Menopause | Louise Newson | → |
| Menopausing | Davina McCall | → |
| The Friendship Cure | Kate Leaver | → |
| Platonic | Marisa Franco | → |
| A Biography of Loneliness | Fay Bound Alberti | → |
| The Lonely City | Olivia Laing | → |
| Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself | Kristin Neff | → |
| The Compassionate Mind Workbook | Chris Irons and Elaine Beaumont | → |