There’s nothing like a brand new year to make you feel like making a fresh start.
Our modern lives can be complicated and stressful so you might want to tackle improving just one aspect of your life at a time, whether it’s your home, finances, relationships, health or happiness.
What follows are just a few books to help you get started making positive changes. There are thousands more titles at your local library — and friendly staff to help you find them.
Many of us find ourselves with too much stuff and not enough places for it all. In her simple, yet effective book The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing, Marie Kondo offers readers practical tips for decluttering and organizing. She also includes truly inspiring stories of the positive benefits you will experience from making this change, in case you need that extra push. Kondo’s soon-to-be-released new book Spark Joy takes her method to the next level, with step-by-step illustrations on how to organize every room in your home.
You may have seen Gail Vaz-Oxlade on television dispensing her no-nonsense financial advice to struggling couples on ’Til Debt Do Us Part or free-spending young women on Princess. Vaz-Oxlade’s books offer that same real talk, only with more detailed information. Never Too Late: Take Control of Your Retirement and Your Future is a great title to pick up no matter what your age.
You can start smaller if you’re in your 20s or 30s, or learn how much you’ll need to ramp up your saving if retirement is looming in the next decade or two. Her brand new book Money Talks: When to Say Yes, and How to Say No, available at the library soon, will help you navigate the potentially choppy waters of money and family.
The Five Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts by Gary Chapman is a classic for a reason. This book will help you to better understand yourself and the people you love. It’s a deceptively easy concept, and you might find yourself reflecting back on the book’s clear and useful lessons years after you read it. Chapman has grown the original book into an empire of love languages, with versions about children, teenagers and even special editions for singles and military couples.
If you’d like a laugh along with your healthy living advice, pick up Drop Dead Healthy: One Man’s Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection by A.J. Jacobs. This is Jacobs’ third Humble Quest book, with the two prior books being about his attempts to become the smartest person in the world and to follow the Bible literally. Like in previous quests, Jacobs taps experts and looks into the research as he works towards his goal of “maximal health from head to toe.” Of course, things don’t always go according to plan, and you’ll probably enjoy Jacobs’ frank descriptions of his (mis)adventures in healthy living.
Speaking of quests, Chris Guillebeau makes a strong case for their role in our mental well-being with The Happiness of Pursuit: Finding the Quest That Will Bring Purpose to Your Life. Guillebeau’s own quest was to visit every country in the world by the time he turned 35. He completed this quest and, along the way, managed to interview several dozen others about their quests, big and small, for this compelling book. Their adventures are fascinating and inspirational, and the book also serves as a manual for how to choose and embark on your very own quest. What could be a bolder New Year’s resolution than that?
A Good Read is a column by Tri-City librarians that is published on Wednesdays. Kimberley Constable works at Port Coquitlam’s Terry Fox Library.
