Here are 76 books that Fine Just the Way It Is fans have personally recommended if you like
Fine Just the Way It Is.
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I am the principal of Guttman Development Strategies (GDS), an organization development firm that works with senior executives and their teams in major corporations globally to build horizontal, high-performance teams, provide leadership coaching, and develop leadership skills. I am a speaker and author of three acclaimed management books and dozens of articles in business publications.
The insights in this groundbreaking book apply across the board, from social and family life to interacting and managing others in organizational life.
What factors are at play when people of high IQ flounder while those who are more modestly endowed succeed? Goleman argues that the difference is Emotional Intelligence, which, as he explains, comprises empathy, effective social skills/communication, self-awareness, self-regulation, and motivation.
I’ve watched too many of the allegedly best and brightest, tough-minded executives flame out because they failed to rein in emotional impulse, read others’ feelings, or handle interpersonal relationships. The skills are learnable, and in today’s asymmetric, hybrid, matrixed organizations, they are essential for success.
The groundbreaking bestseller that redefines intelligence and success Does IQ define our destiny? Daniel Goleman argues that our view of human intelligence is far too narrow, and that our emotions play major role in thought, decision making and individual success. Self-awareness, impulse control, persistence, motivation, empathy and social deftness are all qualities that mark people who excel: whose relationships flourish, who are stars in the workplace. With new insights into the brain architecture underlying emotion and rationality, Goleman shows precisely how emotional intelligence can be nurtured and strengthened in all of us.
Between the Clouds and the River tells a dual-timeline story set between 1942 and 1965, exploring themes of war, identity, and belonging.
The narrative follows Bernhardt Lang, a captured German soldier, and Joseph Holliman, a young boy struggling to survive an abusive home. In a journey that takes readers from…
I am a male feminist, internationally renowned sociologist, and recognized expert on gender identity, men and masculinities, and international education. During my thirty-five-year career, I have published twenty books and numerous book chapters and articles. I am a co-creator of the concept of toxic masculinity. I am the creator of the concept of total inclusivity and co-creator of the concept of totally inclusive self-love. My passion and desire for gender justice and an end to male oppression and violence, especially against women and girls, has been the single biggest drive for all my research and writings.
Don’t say you’re not a feminist until you’ve read this brilliant book.
70 years ago, Simone de Beauvoir kick-started the gender revolution with her iconic, insightful analysis of how men perceive and relate to women and vice versa.
The book is, however, not written in a strident or angry style but hopeful–mostly. Indeed, not until 30 years after publication did de Beauvoir personally adopt the feminist label, even though she managed to write what is arguably the greatest feminist text ever. De Beauvoir aimed to empower women by waking them up to the realities of being the (inferior) ‘Other’ to men.
As de Beauvoir shows, gender identities are laden with myths but also the power to persuade, oppress, and enslave. Only by removing these myths from the mind and imagination can women achieve true freedom. An inspirational book for every thinking person–and as important today as it was…
The essential masterwork that has provoked and inspired generations of men and women. “From Eve’s apple to Virginia Woolf’s room of her own, Beauvoir’s treatise remains an essential rallying point, urging self-sufficiency and offering the fruit of knowledge.” —Vogue
This unabridged edition reinstates significant portions of the original French text that were cut in the first English translation. Vital and groundbreaking, Beauvoir’s pioneering and impressive text remains as pertinent today as when it was first published, and will continue to provoke and inspire generations of men and women to come.
As a young woman I became fascinated by what contributes to our uniqueness as human beings. I was intrigued by historical influences, the development of personality, and how we frequently travel life’s lanes through a labyrinth of conflicting thoughts and emotions. Feminism, spirituality, psychology; I was absorbed by all three. Eventually I studied psychology. My working life was spent in a variety of roles, mainly supporting adults or young people to manage the challenges thrown at them by circumstance. Regarding my writing, I have always penned something i.e., poetry, songs, holiday journals. I progressed to short stories for adults, which were self-published under a pseudonym. ‘Thistle’ is my first novel.
A controversial author who I discovered in my twenties; I lapped up his non-fictional work.
This book is an in-depth investigation into the dark side of the human psyche. Wilson explores the psychology and history of criminality and violence, concluding with how that is manifested in what was then his ‘present day’.
Although first published in 1984, nearly forty years on his work is still pertinent. For me that stimulates many questions. Having just pulled it from my bookshelf, I think it is time I read it again.
Wilson covers his subject with focused attention and easy-to-understand detail. He encourages the reader to think about human existence from many perspectives.
Colin Wilson tells the story of human violence from Peking Man to the Mafia - taking into account the calculated sadism of the Assyrians, the opportunism of the Greek pirates, the brutality that made Rome the ‘razor king of the Mediterranean’, the mindless destruction of the Vandals, the mass slaughter of Genghis Khan, Tamurlane, Ivan the Terrible, Vlad the Impaler and more. Each age has a unique characteristic pattern of crime. In the past three centuries crime has changed and evolved until the sex killer and the mass murderer have become symbols of all that is worst about our civilization.…
Spanning multiple timelines, EO-N weaves WWII mystery with contemporary social commentary.
Revolving around a missing aircraft discovered beneath a glacier decades after it disappeared, the story connects an American biotech executive, a Canadian investigator, the plane’s Canadian pilot, a disillusioned German pilot, and a young victim of Nazi horror.
As a young woman I became fascinated by what contributes to our uniqueness as human beings. I was intrigued by historical influences, the development of personality, and how we frequently travel life’s lanes through a labyrinth of conflicting thoughts and emotions. Feminism, spirituality, psychology; I was absorbed by all three. Eventually I studied psychology. My working life was spent in a variety of roles, mainly supporting adults or young people to manage the challenges thrown at them by circumstance. Regarding my writing, I have always penned something i.e., poetry, songs, holiday journals. I progressed to short stories for adults, which were self-published under a pseudonym. ‘Thistle’ is my first novel.
The female psyche presented in essays written by a plethora of excellent writers.
In addition to psychology, it also explores feminine spirituality, a favourite subject of contributory authors such as Jean Shinoda-Bolen and Sylvia Brinton Perera.
First published in 1990, this collection is truly insightful into ‘the birth of the conscious feminine.’ In places it describes very personal experiences.
I found it a book of healing, hence why I recommended it to some of my counselling clients. Being separate essays, if there is a particular writing style you do not like, it is simple to move on.
All the writers gave me something to contemplate and learn from. It is an incredibly nourishing read.
Ever since I can remember, I've been captivated by the American West. Was it that cowboys were brave and if you had integrity it was most certainly put to the test? Was it that everyone rode horses and I was a horse crazy girl? Whatever it was that struck me, it stayed. I have treasured the West ever since, through books, film, art, and most recently, a fantasy western trilogy of my own.
A slightly more modern take, this book is set in the 1930s, in the perspective of a girl who inherits an ailing Wyoming ranch and she falls in love with the land and the people who inhabit it. What I loved about this one was the discovery of the land and the lifestyle through the eyes of the main character. Throw in a mystery and a lovely romance and you'll be breathless by the end.
If she can’t find out the truth, she may lose more than she gained.
Lena Campbell never knew her grandfather—but she always dreamed of visiting Wyoming, where her mother was born and raised. When she receives word that her grandfather is dead and his Wyoming ranch belongs to her, she jumps at the chance.
Only later does she learn that Garth McKay was murdered, and the murder is still unsolved.
Despite this shadow hanging over her, Lena thrives in her new life—and unexpectedly finds love there. And then a new revelation breaks the…
There's something about broken people trying to do good that has always resonated with me. In basic training, a drill sergeant with debilitating PTSD told us what combat would be like through a storm of choking sobs and a haze of tears. He needed us to know. Even if it broke him. Working as an investigator in Denver and Washington, I watched people with complicated pasts and uncertain futures fight tooth and nail (sometimes literally) to put human traffickers behind bars. Literature has always been a bridle for that wildness I saw in the world. A tool for taking the ghashing, stomping, unruliness of the human experience and making it rideable, relatable, survivable.
This one is a standout of the Longmire series. A bus full of serial killers mashes its potatoes into the side of a mountain during a whiteout and it’s up to Absaroka County Sheriff Walt Longmire to get rounded them up. There’s an epicness about this story that leaves you feeling like you’re riding a literary wave into the pilings and Craig Johnson paints the whole debacle with a Hillerman-esque mysticism and his own singular brand of stoic humor.
The seventh book in the New York Times bestselling Longmire series, featuring Sheriff Walt Longmire.
Raynaud Shade, an adopted Crow Indian and one of the country's most dangerous sociopaths, has just confessed to murdering a boy twenty years ago and burying him deep within the Bighorn Mountains. Absaroka County Sherriff Walt Longmire must escort Shade through a snowstorm to the site, but the mission turns personal when Walt learns whom the dead boy's family is.
Guided only by Indian mysticism and a battered paperback of Dante's Inferno, Walt braves the icy hell of the Cloud Peak Wilderness Area, cheating death…
Nate Champion might be the most heroic figure of America’s Old West ... and yet one of popular history’s best-kept secrets. Now he finally gets his due in this historical novel duology. His humble beginnings in Texas prepare him for a life with horses and cattle. Though a well-known horse…
Because I grew up in the 1950s and ’60s, my supply of heroes was liberally doled out by the 130+ Western series that dominated nighttime television in those decades. My parents allowed me one program per week. It was a Western. I was soon interested in history, to know what really did happen in the American West, and so I came to understand the great discrepancies between fact and TV. The truth, for me, is so much more interesting than the myth. As a Western historian, I've done my share of historical research, but I still gravitate toward fiction as a writer. I love the freedom to engage my characters’ thoughts and emotions.
By reading this book, people of the early 20th
century were introduced to a prototype protagonist who would be
duplicated (with variations) for generations to come. Authors who
followed this lead were Zane Grey, Louis L’Amour, Jack Schaefer, Charles
Portis, Elmer Kelton, and I.
As a boy I found my heroes in the format
of the lone common man who faced up to adversities that cut against his
moral code. These protagonists played a large part in shaping my
values. Even though the characters were fictitious, the lessons were
real. The inspiration hit home.
Wister’s influence on later writers
remains intact for good reason. His work was the historical beginning of
the “Western,” which, to many folks, serves as the quintessential
American story.
Still as exciting and meaningful as when it was written in 1902, Owen Wister's epic tale of one man's journey into the untamed territory of Wyoming, where he is caught between his love for a woman and his quest for justice, has exemplified one of the most significant and enduring themes in all of American culture.
With remarkable character depth and vivid descriptive passages, The Virginian stands not only as the first great novel of American Western literature, but as a testament to the eternal struggle between good and evil in humanity and a revealing study of the forces that…
Landscape is always important in my writing, and Yellowstone, which I’ve visited numerous times, is such a special place, rich with geodiversity and teeming with danger, that it kind of demanded to be a setting for my novel. I’ve also always been kind of obsessed with bears, and Yellowstone is grizzly country. But I didn’t want to write the stereotypical “man against nature” book. I’m too much of a feminist for that.
I recommend One for the Blackbird, One for the Crowfor three reasons. First, it’s set in the same general time and place as my novel and depicts many of the hardships that frontier women faced in the second half of the 19th century. It also tells a story about an unlikely but necessary friendship, thematically akin to my novel. And finally, the prose is lovely and a joy to read.
From the bestselling author of The Ragged Edge of Night comes a powerful and poetic novel of survival and sacrifice on the American frontier.
Wyoming, 1876. For as long as they have lived on the frontier, the Bemis and Webber families have relied on each other. With no other settlers for miles, it is a matter of survival. But when Ernest Bemis finds his wife, Cora, in a compromising situation with their neighbor, he doesn't think of survival. In one impulsive moment, a man is dead, Ernest is off to prison, and the women left behind are divided by rage…
USA Today and #1 internationally bestselling author of The Marsh King's Daughter - “Subtle, brilliant and mature . . . as good as a thriller can be.” – The New York Times Book Review, and soon to be a major motion picture starring Daisy Ridley and Ben Mendelsohn, and The Wicked Sister, a Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2020. "Massively thrilling and altogether unputdownable. Dionne is proving to be one of the finest suspense writers working today.” – Karin Slaughter
Frankie Elkin doesn’t know the woods, but she knows how to find people.
As she and her rescue team head into the Wyoming wilderness in search of a lost hiker, it quickly becomes clear that someone is tracking them; someone who will do whatever it takes to stop them. Gardner is an avid hiker, and her intimate knowledge of the rugged Wyoming backcountry shines on every terrifying page.
This immersive, propulsive, utterly chilling, and yet deeply moving wilderness thriller is one of the best books I read all year.
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Gardner, a chilling thriller about a young man gone missing in the wilderness of Wyoming . . . and the secrets uncovered by the desperate effort to find him
Timothy O’Day knew the woods. Yet when he disappeared on the first night of a bachelor party camping trip with his best friends in the world, he didn’t leave a trace. What he did leave behind were two heartbroken parents, a crew of guilt-ridden groomsmen, and a pile of clues that don’t add up.
Frankie Elkin doesn’t know the woods, but she knows…
This climate fiction novel follows four generations of women and their battles against a global giant that controls and manipulates Earth’s water. Told mostly through a diary and drawing on scientific observation and personal reflection, Lynna’s story unfolds incrementally, like climate change itself. Her gritty memoir describes a near-future Toronto…
As an avid trail-runner and mountain-biker who’s done a ton of outdoorsy things, from sailboat racing on the Chesapeake Bay to rockclimbing to backpacking in the Pacific Northwest, I’m convinced that nothing gets you closer to someone’s experience than a well-told first-person account. The best personal narratives make you feel the cold, glow with the exhilaration, and burn with ambition to go, to do, to see for yourself — and can even make you look at the world, and yourself, in a new way. These books, different as they are, have all done those things for me.
I really love a lot of the writing between the two world wars — there’s something clear-eyed but lacking in guile, almost willfully large-spirited and generous. The two Muries alternate chapters, Mardie describing everyday life in the beautiful but rapidly-changing Jackson Hole of the 1930s and 40s, while Olaus writes about and illustrates his work as a famous wildlife biologist. I regularly re-read this book when I want to feel good about people and the world.
For over thirty-seven years, Margaret and Olaus Murie made their home in the mountainous wilderness of the Tetons, where Olaus Murie conducted his famous studies of the American elk, the wapiti. Through these years their home was almost a nature-conservation shrine to thousands of Americans interested in the out-of-doors, in animals, in nature in general. Wapiti Wilderness, begun by Mrs. Murie as a sequel to her Two in the Far North, which told of the Muries' life and expeditions in Alaska, became a book written by both the Muries.
In alternate chapters, Olaus tells of his work as a field…
