Here are 100 books that A to Z Healing Toolbox fans have personally recommended if you like
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Rachel is a heart-minded professional specializing in current and relevant approaches in support of individuals and workplaces following a loss or trauma. She is a best-selling author, seasoned keynote speaker, and business consultant. She began her career serving in management of Fortune 500 companies, overcoming her own adversity following the sudden death of her husband while raising a 2-year-old. She was immediately confronted with the see-saw created when personal and professional trajectories collide, giving her the opportunity to provide invaluable insights about loss. Her books include best-selling Living with Loss One Day at a Time, Finding Peace, and Grief in the Workplace: A Comprehensive Guide for Being Prepared.
This poignant memoir is beautifully written in short, powerful chapters that mirror the shock and heartache of caring for and losing a beloved spouse while showing the resilience of the human spirit. I like that it is written in such short, easy-to-digest chapters, since it is so difficult for most bereaved to focus attention and concentrate, especially early on. At the same time, Nancy manages to convey, with clarity and honesty, all the personal details of her journey through grief and what she learned along the way.
The past is simply part of our story; just not the whole story...On the very day that Nancy Sharp delivered premature twins, she learned that her husband's brain cancer returned after eighteen months in remission. Less than three years later, at the age of 37, she became a widow. But while many in that situation would crumble, Nancy had an innate ability to hold life and death in the same moment. She learned to "see beyond the frame's edge." In BOTH SIDES NOW: A True Story of Love, Loss, and Bold Living, Nancy shares her unforgettable journey - one that…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
Rachel is a heart-minded professional specializing in current and relevant approaches in support of individuals and workplaces following a loss or trauma. She is a best-selling author, seasoned keynote speaker, and business consultant. She began her career serving in management of Fortune 500 companies, overcoming her own adversity following the sudden death of her husband while raising a 2-year-old. She was immediately confronted with the see-saw created when personal and professional trajectories collide, giving her the opportunity to provide invaluable insights about loss. Her books include best-selling Living with Loss One Day at a Time, Finding Peace, and Grief in the Workplace: A Comprehensive Guide for Being Prepared.
This is an inspiring book of hope after loss. Michele provides readers with current and relevant ideas on how to integrate the love of your past with the pain of the present to find joy in the future. She shares her personal journey with great vulnerability, emphasizing the self-doubt that occurs while navigating the endless decisions that arise following the loss of a partner. As you read Michele's candid personal stories you will find her words relatable, sharing tears with her as well as great laughter. It is uplifting, practical, and written in a very caring way.
A Life-Affirming Process That Provides Transformative Support
No one who lives and loves will be immune from grief and trauma. While this suffering is universal, living through a devastating event often leaves people feeling alone and even alienated. Michele Neff Hernandez experienced this when her thirty-nine-year-old husband died after being hit by a car while riding his bicycle. Her most transformative realization was that grief changes us. There is no going back or bucking up. Life is now different.
In Different after You, Michele presents easy-to-digest steps based on her work with thousands of widowed people and her innovative grief…
Rachel is a heart-minded professional specializing in current and relevant approaches in support of individuals and workplaces following a loss or trauma. She is a best-selling author, seasoned keynote speaker, and business consultant. She began her career serving in management of Fortune 500 companies, overcoming her own adversity following the sudden death of her husband while raising a 2-year-old. She was immediately confronted with the see-saw created when personal and professional trajectories collide, giving her the opportunity to provide invaluable insights about loss. Her books include best-selling Living with Loss One Day at a Time, Finding Peace, and Grief in the Workplace: A Comprehensive Guide for Being Prepared.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who has suffered multiple losses of loved ones, whether it be a spouse, family member, or friend. Nancy Saltzman's story will enter into your soul and give you the strength of a woman who lost her husband and two children in a plane crash. She shares her story of love, loss, and rebuilding of a future as a radical survivor of cancer and loss of her family. Her spirit and desire to live life to the fullest are prominent in her story.
"Radical Survivor" chronicles elementary school principal Nancy Saltzman's extraordinary saga as a two-time cancer survivor who lost her entire family in a small plane crash. Told with honesty, insight and laugh out loud flashes of humor, Radical Survivor traverses the full spectrum of human emotions. Several aspects of this book make it unique among memories. *The book is enriched by letters to the author interwoven with narrative throughout the book. Most of the notes were received after the death of her family, but some are mementos from her husband and entries from her son's journals. *The author has experienced an…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
Rachel is a heart-minded professional specializing in current and relevant approaches in support of individuals and workplaces following a loss or trauma. She is a best-selling author, seasoned keynote speaker, and business consultant. She began her career serving in management of Fortune 500 companies, overcoming her own adversity following the sudden death of her husband while raising a 2-year-old. She was immediately confronted with the see-saw created when personal and professional trajectories collide, giving her the opportunity to provide invaluable insights about loss. Her books include best-selling Living with Loss One Day at a Time, Finding Peace, and Grief in the Workplace: A Comprehensive Guide for Being Prepared.
Widowed. Rants, Raves and Randoms is a great read for widows and widowers, but really anyone that had a loss or knows of someone that has. It's excellently written, easy to read, and thoroughly engaging but mostly will make your heart smile. A beautifully told, heartbreaking love story, but mostly it will leave you with optimism and lingering warmth. It gives one hope that brighter days are ahead and love survives, even in death.
Join Hope & Empowerment Coach, author and speaker, John Polo, as he takes you on a journey into the mind of a young widower in this unique and eclectic book. You will laugh. You will cry. You will question why. “This is the best grief book I have read. Ever.” – Phyllis “You sir have found your calling. OMG! You have no idea what your book has just done for me.” – Jennifer “This book made me cry so hard, and then laugh even harder. Have Kleenex ready and go pee before you start. Because you won’t want to put…
As a woman, wife, and Mom, I’m always looking to get lost in a good fictional romance. I’ve always been drawn more to the messy kind of love stories than the sappy sweet. If you’re like me, and need a bit of flaw in your characters and lots of steam, then you’ll want to read all of these books for sure. Always make sure to check trigger warnings before reading these books, though!
Boys of Brayshaw will absolutely consume you! There is so much suspense, swoony guys, strong female leads, and twists and turns that will have you rushing to the next page. I’ve read this series so many times and will never get enough. These characters will stay with you forever.
In the world of morally corrupt teenagers, only the strongest survive...
"Simply UNPUTDOWNABLE ... all the feels cranked up to eleven. Five stars for this delicious page-turner!" - BB Easton, bestselling author of the Netflix adaption Sex/Life
From USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author Meagan Brandy comes an enemies-to-lovers, New Adult romance full of morally corrupt and power-driven teenagers.
"Girls like you aren't exactly welcomed at a place like this, so keep your head down and look the other way."
Those were the exact words of my social worker when she dropped me in my newest hellhole, a…
Having been a Hollywood writer for thirty years, and now written a novel that although satirical still accurately describes the creation of a TV series, I’ve long been amazed at how many Hollywood stories – including films made in Hollywood – offer fantasies that have even less to do with the reality of love and work in film and television than Game of Thrones does with the real Middle Ages. I’ve written fantasy myself, but for people fascinated by Hollywood, or who want to work in film and TV, there’s a reason too to read books that capture the reality, especially when like the books listed here, they do so astonishingly well.
Oscar-nominated, Emmy-winning Eleanor Perry put her training as a psychiatric social worker to extraordinary use writing now-classic films including the hypnoticDavid and Lisaand The Diary of a Mad Housewife. She brought the same dramatic skills and insights to examining her own life as a writer at a time when women faced nearly impossible challenges in Hollywood. The result was this deeply felt, authentic, often autobiographical novel. My wife Loraine Despres, herself a highly regarded novelist and TV writer, gave it to me when I first confessed an interest in screenwriting. The book, now unjustly out of print but hopefully available from libraries and at a price from rare book dealers, has haunted me ever since.
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
Marcia Naomi Berger's passion is to help people create lasting, fulfilling marriages. An experienced clinical social worker, psychotherapist, and medical school clinical faculty member, Berger has held senior-level positions in child welfare, alcoholism treatment, and psychiatry. She says, "I stayed single for a long time because of my parent's divorce. Now happily married for over thirty-four years, I fill my books with the hard-earned wisdom I've gained professionally and personally."
I especially like this reader-friendly book because of its thoroughness, honesty, and wise advice. The authors are a married couple and social workers who draw from decades of experience counseling couples, leading workshops and seminars, and their marriage. I mention honesty because I'm impressed with the authors' openness, integrity, and conversational style.
Whether you're already married or hope to soon or someday, you'll probably benefit from how Linda and Charlie freely share knowledge gained from their successes and some embarrassing mistakes they've survived and corrected during their fifty-year, fulfilling marriage. Their commitment to growing as individuals and as a couple can be contagious, so check out this book and be prepared to stretch!
What if you could learn important relationship lessons now, rather than after you make the mistakes that most couples make? You can, and this best-selling book will point the way! Linda and Charlie Bloom were in their early 20's when they met and fell in love. At twenty five they married and their first-born came eighteen months later.
According to Charlie, "We were young and we made a lot of mistakes; enough to fill a book." Fast forward about twenty years.
Charlie's little sister Claire was about to get married and she invited him to read something inspirational at her…
I’m fascinated by the obsession that we as a society have with making policy, but not whether policy works, and how policy is treated as a magic bullet to the social problems that we all care about. But my experience is that it’s not ideas that solve problems; it’s action that solves problems. This fascination has led me to become a professor of public policy and administration, where I have read extensively about this issue for over a decade and written two books and over four dozen articles. My work focuses on how ideas are translated into actions and how those actions impact our communities.
The thing I love about this book is that it illustrates how difficult the jobs of street-level bureaucrats (i.e., public servants working directly with the public at the street level) are.
Being a cop, teacher, social worker, etc. is a lot more complex than what it looks like from the outside because it’s not just about helping citizens; it’s also about navigating all the rules and policies that govern how public services are delivered.
It’s impossible to read this book and not walk away with a respect for how hard those jobs are.
For more than five years, we’ve been asking ourselves a question: How? How did Mister Rogers help millions of kids feel accepted, special, and safe? Was there a method to what he did? Was there a blueprint he left behind—one that we might continue to learn from today? The answer, of course, is yes. In fact, we’re only scratching the surface of what we can learn from Fred Rogers and the incredible educators, researchers, and authors who are following in his footsteps. We hope you’ll find echoes of the Neighborhood—and the feelings that Fred inspired—in each of the books we’ve listed here.
We love the side-by-side pairing of two separate (but inseparable) concepts: a child’s inner needs and a child’s outer life.
Author Stephanie Malia Krauss carefully considers the social, emotional, and environmental factors that can help every child thrive. And because it’s written as a guidebook, Whole Child, Whole Life helps busy parents and teachers get straight to the things that matter most.
Plus, it’s beautifully illustrated by Manuel S. Herrera!
In a world that seems to grow more unpredictable and challenging by the day, how can we increase learning and joy for children while offering them much-needed support?
Uncertainty and disruption have created a youth mental health crisis that requires all hands on deck. This urgently needed guidebook offers comprehensive and scientifically-grounded methods you can use to support young people's well-being, no matter what obstacles they face. Written by an expert with decades of experience in education, youth development, and social work, this timely and timeless resource includes:
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
One of my favourite sounds is teens interacting—especially when they are throwing shade. I spent twenty-five years as a junior and senior high teacher, and I miss rocking and rolling during class discussions with my students. As a writer of contemporary fiction (actually in anything I write), I work hard at using dialogue as an engine to drive each scene. Each line needs to be refined to ensure that it’s snappy, engaging, and real. I’m a writer from southeast Saskatchewan, Canada, where there’s no shortage of great one-liners to use. I hope you enjoy the dialogue in these five recommendations as much as I did.
You Don’t Have to Die in the Endis just the sort of book I’d hand to a student who struggled with finding anything relatable. Eugenia Grimm could be down to her last chance when she is sent to Reason’s Wait, a facility for troubled teens. Because of her troubled past, she has programmed herself to lock horns with any adult who tries to cross—or help—her. I cringed during her tempestuous exchanges with social workers, staff, and fellow “inmates”—hoping one of them would find a way to save this bitter, angry girl from herself. Spoiler alert: As Daher’s title suggests, Eugenia’s train wreck of a life is salvaged in the end.
Eugenia Grimm is a tough girl living in a tough town at the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. She drinks and fights and pushes against expectations. She is also hurting. After her father died by suicide on her eighth birthday, her older brothers drifted away and her mother up and left when she turned 14, Eugenia has not made the best choices. After a last-straw violent incident and faced with the possibility of incarceration, she is sentenced to time at an Intensive Support and Supervision Program located at a remote mountain ranch. There, she begins to makeconnections, explore difficult truths,…