Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy

The Art of Racing in the Rain

Garth Stein · 321 pages

Enzo knows he is different from other dogs: a philosopher with a nearly human soul (and an obsession with opposable thumbs), he has educated himself by watching television extensively, and by listening very closely to the words of his master, Denny Swift, an up-and-coming race car driver.Through Denny, Enzo has gained tremendous insight into the human condition, and he sees that life, like racing,

This Book Made Me Think of You

Libby Page · 417 pages

THE NATIONAL BESTSELLER THAT CELEBRATES LOVE, LIFE, AND FINDING THE RIGHT BOOK AT THE RIGHT TIME Join readers around the world who have fallen in love with the book praised by Adriana Trigiani as “the feel-good novel of the year”—an emotional and uplifting story about one woman’s reading-inspired journey to live, dream, and love again. “A lovely, affecting paean to the power of books and enduring

A Grace Disguised: How the Soul Grows Through Loss

Gerald L. Sittser · 207 pages

Tuesdays with Morrie

Mitch Albom · 192 pages

Tuesdays with Morrie is a memoir by American author Mitch Albom about a series of visits Albom made to his former sociology professor Morrie Schwartz, as Schwartz gradually dies of ALS. The book topped the New York Times Non-Fiction Best-Sellers List for 23 combined weeks in 2000, and remained on the New York Times best-selling list for more than four years after. In 2006, Tuesdays with Morrie was

Good Grief

Lolly Winston · 362 pages

A brilliantly funny and heartwarming debut about a young woman who stumbles, then fights to build a new life after the death of her husband. The perfect book for anyone who has ever been heartbroken, lost someone they loved, or eaten too many Oreos.

The Art of Happiness

Dalai Lama XIV, Howard C. Cutler · 322 pages

Summary:One of the world's greatest spiritual leaders teams up with a psychiatrist to share, for the first time, how he achieved his hard-won serenity and how readers can attain the same inner peace

The Cross Gardener

Jason F. Wright · 293 pages

Filled with sorrow over the fatal car accident of his wife and their unborn child, John Bevan erects a small cross near the scene of the accident and then withdraws from life and love. But when he encounters a young man kneeling before the cross, touching it up with white paint. John's conversations and travels with this mysterious man--known to him only as the Cross Gardener--forever change his w

A Man Called Peter: The Story of Peter Marshall

Catherine Marshall · 376 pages

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed

Lori Gottlieb · 432 pages

From a New York Times best-selling author, psychotherapist, and national advice columnist, a hilarious, thought-provoking, and surprising new book that takes us behind the scenes of a therapist’s world—where her patients are looking for answers (and so is she). One day, Lori Gottlieb is a therapist who helps patients in her Los Angeles practice. The next, a crisis causes her world to come crash

Anybody Out There?

Marian Keyes · 592 pages

Life is perfect for Anna Walsh. She has the "Best Job in the World" as a PR exec for a top-selling urban beauty brand, a lovely apartment in New York, and a perfect husband - the love of her life, Aidan Maddox. Until the morning she wakes up in her mammy's living room in Dublin with stitches in her face, a dislocated knee, and completely smashed-up hands - and no memory of how she got there. While

The Gifts of Imperfection : 10th Anniversary Edition

Brené Brown · 208 pages

A Man Called Ove

A Man Called Ove

The Happiness Project: Or Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun

Gretchen Rubin · 301 pages

Gretchen Rubin had an epiphany one rainy afternoon in the unlikeliest of places: a city bus. "The days are long, but the years are short," she realized. "Time is passing, and I'm not focusing enough on the things that really matter." In that moment, she decided to dedicate a year to her happiness project.In this lively and compelling account of that year, Rubin carves out her place alongside the a

The Walk

Richard Paul Evans · 289 pages

What would you do if you lost everything -- your job, your home, and the love of your life -- all at the same time? When it happens to Seattle ad executive Alan Christoffersen, he's tempted by his darkest thoughts. A bottle of pills in his hand and nothing left to live for, he plans to end his misery. Instead, he decides to take a walk. But not any ordinary walk. Taking with him only the bare

Bough Down

Karen Green · 186 pages

A book of dualities, probing the small spaces between lucidity and madness, desire and ambivalence, the living and the absent. Both an evocation of her love for her husband David Foster Wallace and an act of defiance in the face of devastating loss, Bough Down is a lapidary, keenly observed and composed work, awash with the honesty of an open heart.

Life's That Way

Jim Beaver · 303 pages

Lifes That Way is a modern-day Book of Job. In August 2003, Jim Beaver, a character actor whom many know from the popular HBO series Deadwood, and his wife Cecily learned what they thought was the worst news possible their daughter Maddie was autistic. Then six weeks later the roof fell inCecily was diagnosed with stage-four lung cancer. Jim immediately began writing a nightly e-mail as a way to k

Heaven's Coast: A Memoir

Mark Doty · 312 pages

The year is 1989 and Mark Doty's life has reached a state of enviable equilibrium. His reputation as a poet of formidable talent is growing, he enjoys his work as a college professor and, perhaps most importantly, he is deeply in love with his partner of many years, Wally Roberts. The harmonious existence these two men share is shattered, however, when they learn that Wally has tested positive for

The Best Day the Worst Day: Life with Jane Kenyon

Donald Hall · 258 pages

From the Publisher: Donald Hall's celebrated book of poems Without was written for his wife, Jane Kenyon, who died in 1995. Hall returns to this powerful territory in The Best Day the Worst Day, a work of prose that is equally "a work of art, love, and generous genius" (Liz Rosenberg, Boston Globe). Jane Kenyon was nineteen years younger than Donald Hall and a student poet at the University of M

Two-Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage

Madeleine L'Engle · 231 pages

This moving memoir documents a marriage of more than forty years between two gifted people, a long term marriage that was: "full of wonderful things, terrible things, joyous things, grievous things, but ours."

Me After You

Lucie Brownlee · 319 pages

Lucie is 37. She is the mother of a young daughter. And she is a widow. Her husband, Mark, died suddenly at the age of just 37. There wasn't even time to say goodbye. This book, inspired by her award-winning blog Wife After Death, is the story of her grief, and how she is (and isn't) coming to terms with Mark's death, and bringing up their daughter on her own. On the evening of February 11, 2012,

Signs of Life: A Memoir

Natalie Taylor · 306 pages

Twenty-four-year-old Natalie Taylor has led a charmed life. Surrounded by her large, close-knit family, she enjoys her meaningful job as a high school English teacher, cherishes being married to her college sweetheart and is ecstatic about their baby on the way. But her life suddenly changes.

The Year of Magical Thinking

Joan Didion · 227 pages

[In this book, the author] explores an intensely personal yet universal experience: a portrait of a marriage - and a life, in good times and bad - that will speak to anyone who has ever loved a husband or wife or child. Several days before Christmas 2003, John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion saw their only daughter, Quintana, fall ill with what seemed at first flu, then pneumonia, then complete sept

Bird By Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Anne Lamott · 240 pages

Anne Lamott gives her perspective on the art and work of writing. The title comes from a family story when her brother had to complete a report on birds. He put it off until the last minute and was overwhelmed. Her father counseled him saying they would take it, "Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird."