Self-Directed Growth Work
Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realize Your Potential for Lasting Fulfillment by Martin Seligman
Leading research psychologist writes a user-friendly road map for increasing happiness quotient. Makes distinction between pleasure which can be fleeting, and gratification which supports long-term happiness.

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
How people create meaning in life with full intention and focus and thereby achieve an ongoing state of satisfaction and sense of fulfillment. Strategies for feeling more alive!

Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life: The New Acceptance and Commitment Therapy by Steven C. Hayes, Ph.D.
Distinguishes pain from suffering and describes how language and thought cause suffering. Interesting theory based on brain research coupled with workbook format offering a clear method to move from suffering to engagement with life.

How We Choose to Be Happy by Rick Roster and Greg Hicks
Well organized, easy to read current information on science of happiness. Informs and instructs in nine choices happy people universally have in common. Includes tools for self-assessment.

Setting your Heart on Fire: Seven Invitations to Liberate Your Life by Raphael Cushnir
A must read. Intelligent, precise, accessible, practical, poetic. Captures, distills and describes heart of transformation for everyday understanding and practice.

Nature Inspired
Ecopsychology: Restoring the Earth, Healing the Mind by Allen D. Kanner, Theodore Roszak, and Mary E. Gomes
A revolution in modern psychology. A comprehensive collection of writings from premier psychotherapists, thinkers and eco-activists working in the field. Proposes that the health of the planet is inextricably linked to psychological health of humanity.

Lost Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder by Richard Louv
A call to action argues for a return to an awareness of and appreciation for the natural world.  Focuses on restorative qualities of nature for children and acknowledges that nature needs its children.

Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche by Bill Plotkin and Thomas Berry
Experience based, intellectually stimulating, life-altering antidote to mainstream Western civilization. Fresh, heart-opening personal stories of vision quests. Offers practical tools to engage in your own soul journey.

Tom Brown’s Field Guide to Nature Observation and Tracking by Tom Brown, Jr. and Brandt Morgan
Suggests a way of being that allows us to live in harmony with earth. Exercises to slow down, clear the mind, sharpen the senses and develop rapport with nature.

Urgent Message from Mother: Gather the Women, Save the World by Jean Shinoda Bolen
Inspiring book that seeks to galvanize the still untapped power of women acting together to change our world. Combines visionary thinking with practical how-to.

World as Lover, World as Self by Joanna Macy
Personalized reading of concerns regarding deep ecology, general systems theory and the Buddha’s teachings on interdependent co-arising. A blueprint for social change.

 

Of General Interest
A General Theory of Love by Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini, and Richard Lannon
An intelligent, inspiring, accessible, affirming, pleasure to read. Brings attachment theory, brain research and biology of emotion together to explain elemental tie between love, health and happiness.

Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Golman
Exploration of two minds--the rational and the emotional--and how they shape our destiny. Compelling vision of human possibility. If you have ever asked, “Why feel my feelings?”--read this book!

The Female Brain by Louann Brizendine, M.D.
A pioneering neuropsychiatrist brings together the latest findings to show how the unique structure of the female brain determines how women think, what they value, how they communicate, and who they'll love. Awesome book, fun read, helps demystify gender differences--what a relief!

The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
A small, pure and simple fable weaves a story of the interconnected tapestry of life.  Heaven is a place where your earthly life is explained to you by five pivotal people who were in it.

The Passion of Mary Magdelene by Elizabeth Cunningham
Absorbing visionary fantasy about Celtic Magdelene's life as Jesus' wife. Unforgettable character written in modern-speak. Weaves Hebrew scripture, Celtic and Egyptian mythology and early Christian legend into a seamless whole. Women in Jesus' ministry given far more representation. Reverent and irreverent, bawdy and holy. Glorious, fun page turner!