Staff Picks

So good. As a cynic and skeptic, the author takes us on an entertaining journey toward meditation after his very public on-air panic attack during a newscast. Anyone learning to meditate can relate to the difficulties encountered at first but appreciate how helpful it was in the end for the author.  

 

Publisher's description:

After having a nationally televised panic attack, Dan Harris knew he had to make some changes. A lifelong nonbeliever, he found himself on a bizarre adventure involving a disgraced pastor, a mysterious self-help guru, and a gaggle of brain scientists. Eventually, Harris realized that the source of his problems was the very thing he always thought was his greatest asset : the incessant, insatiable voice in his head, which had propelled him through the ranks of a hypercompetitive business, but had also led him to make the profoundly stupid decisions that provoked his on-air freak-out. Eventually Harris stumbled upon an effective way to rein in that voice, something he always assumed to be either impossible or useless : meditation, a tool that research suggests can do everything from lower your blood pressure to essentially rewire your brain. 10% Happier takes readers on a ride from the outer reaches of neuroscience to the inner sanctum of network news to the bizarre fringes of America's spiritual scene, and leaves them with a takeaway that could actually change their lives. This fifth anniversary edition features a new preface by Harris and new guided meditations from his favorite teachers, including Joseph Goldstein and Sharon Salzberg

 

This is a very practical book about how to find small moments of joy or 'microjoys' in the midst of life's sorrows. Cyndie Spiegel experienced a couple of extremely challenging losses and setbacks and was able to find hopeful moments in the midst of it all; and she shares how we can too.

 

Publisher's description: 

Bighearted and hopeful. Unflinchingly honest and healing. A profound compendium of intimate, inspiring essays and thoughtful prompts that will keep you afloat in difficult times and sustain you in the everyday. Microjoys are a practice of discerning hope and joy in each and every moment of our lives. They are accessible to all of us, at all times, if we can hone the ability to look for them. They are the hidden wisdom, subtle treasures, and ordinary delights that surround us: A polka-dot glass on a thrift store shelf. A cat that you didn't know you needed to adopt. A dear friend's kind message at just the right time. The neighborhood spice shop. A beloved family tradition. The simple quietude of being in love. A chai tea recipe. Cyndie Spiegel first began taking note of microjoys during the most difficult year of her life-when she experienced back-to-back unprecedented and devastating losses-and she found that these small moments of hope helped her move through each day with a semblance of comfort and a bit more joy. Through beautifully written narrative essays and prompts, Cyndie shares the microjoys that have kept her going through tough times and shows us how we can learn to see the microjoys in our own lives. Microjoys don't change the truth of loss or make grief any more convenient, but they allow us to momentarily touch joy, keeping us buoyed and moving forward, one step at a time.

 

Poet Ross Gay's collection of essays--"essayettes" he calls them--grew out of a year-long project to record daily delights. The process helped him develop his "delight radar" and the belief that delight grows when shared; what he shares here with the reader is a wonderful catalog of small delights that in his hands grow into something more. Flowers gathered on a spring walk home, a high-five from a stranger, the joy of blowing something off, eating Botan Rice Candy, the efficiency of a scythe in the garden, the unexpected tenderness of a tap from a flight attendant, the phrases "not fuh nuttin" and "whoop-de-doo", his father weeping at the movie "Ghost," a lavender infinity scarf and masculinity, carrying a tomato seedling on a plane. Over the year he comes back to common themes of family, public space, dreams, gardening, music, politics, and kindness. He also meditates on racism, and how being a black man in America, in a culture that often wants to conflate blackness and suffering, the simple act of writing "a book of black delight" becomes a delight in itself.