Here are 100 books that Strong like Water fans have personally recommended if you like
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I have been to hell and back over the years. After experiencing childhood abuse, I lived through a succession of traumas with my family including fraud, painful experiences in church ministry, a death threat, and a catastrophic house fire accidentally started by my mother-in-law. While I was helped by counseling, prayer, and caring friends and mentors, something was still missing. I needed to process all that pain and loss but didn’t know how. I had to learn how to grieve. Over years of rebuilding, I’ve lived the lessons of lament and know the healing that is possible when pain is metabolized.
I discovered Cole Arthur Riley through her breath prayers and curated wisdom around liberation through her Black Liturgies account on Instagram. Her words in this book are poetry and good medicine for my soul.
Her story of learning to love her physical body as she lives with chronic pain is wise and freeing. I didn’t know how much I needed her wise reimagining of the story of the garden, the fall, and what it means to find home.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • In her stunning debut, the creator of Black Liturgies weaves stories from three generations of her family alongside contemplative reflections to discover the “necessary rituals” that connect us with our belonging, dignity, and liberation.
“This is the kind of book that makes you different when you’re done.”—Ashley C. Ford, New York Times bestselling author of Somebody’s Daughter
“Reaches deep beneath the surface of words unspoken, wounds unhealed, and secrets untempered to break them open in order for fresh light to break through.”—Morgan Jerkins, New York Times bestselling author of This Will Be My Undoing and…
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…
I have been to hell and back over the years. After experiencing childhood abuse, I lived through a succession of traumas with my family including fraud, painful experiences in church ministry, a death threat, and a catastrophic house fire accidentally started by my mother-in-law. While I was helped by counseling, prayer, and caring friends and mentors, something was still missing. I needed to process all that pain and loss but didn’t know how. I had to learn how to grieve. Over years of rebuilding, I’ve lived the lessons of lament and know the healing that is possible when pain is metabolized.
I love that Rah calls lament prophetic because it shines a light on the hard realities of pain or injustice. I needed to hear lament described as a conversation that happens best in communities hoping to be heard and helped by the Divine.
Rah is a professor and pastor, allowing him to bring intellectual rigor and empathy to his work. The book was born of a teaching series whose goal was to make room for stories of struggle instead of focusing, as American evangelicals typically do, on success and positivity.
This book traces through the songs of lament that make up the Book of Lamentations and honors the fact that sometimes laments end in minor key since they refuse to bury, bypass, or force a happy ending.
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When Soong-Chan Rah planted an urban church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, his first full sermon series was a six-week exposition of the book of Lamentations. Preaching on an obscure, depressing Old Testament book was probably not the most seeker-sensitive way to launch a church. But it shaped their community with a radically countercultural perspective.
The American church avoids lament. But lament is a missing, essential component of Christian faith. Lament recognizes struggles and suffering, that the world is not as it…
I have been to hell and back over the years. After experiencing childhood abuse, I lived through a succession of traumas with my family including fraud, painful experiences in church ministry, a death threat, and a catastrophic house fire accidentally started by my mother-in-law. While I was helped by counseling, prayer, and caring friends and mentors, something was still missing. I needed to process all that pain and loss but didn’t know how. I had to learn how to grieve. Over years of rebuilding, I’ve lived the lessons of lament and know the healing that is possible when pain is metabolized.
Like Opelt, I believed I was well equipped to grieve well before suffering found me. Like her, I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Her book was solace because it refused to shy away from the complexity and sometimes downright strangeness of grief. Her exploration of historical rituals for processing grief in community sparked my imagination for more ways of restoring lost practices and finding new ones for engaging loss, remembering well, and honoring life with those I love.
When Amanda Held Opelt suffered a season of loss-including three miscarriages and the unexpected death of her sister, New York Times bestselling writer Rachel Held Evans-she was confronted with sorrow she didn't know to how face. Opelt struggled to process her grief and accept the reality of the pain in the world. She also wrestled with some unexpectedly difficult questions: What does it mean to truly grieve and to grieve well? Why is it so hard to move on? Why didn't my faith prepare me for this kind of pain? And what am I supposed to do now?
The Year Mrs. Cooper Got Out More
by
Meredith Marple,
The coastal tourist town of Great Wharf, Maine, boasts a crime rate so low you might suspect someone’s lying.
Nevertheless, jobless empty nester Mallory Cooper has become increasingly reclusive and fearful. Careful to keep the red wine handy and loath to leave the house, Mallory misses her happier self—and so…
I am a faith-based psychotherapist with over twenty years of experience working with couples, families, and adults recovering from trauma and relational wounds. I believe in evidence-based psychotherapy modalities, as well as the power of the Holy Spirit, to guide us each to our ultimate healing. I find journeying with others a sacred privilege and strive to foster love, authenticity, courage, and empowerment not only as a therapist but as a friend, wife, mother, and sister.
This book feels profoundly important to understanding the crisis of church culture. KJ forced me to look at the church and understand the implicit ways that power and control can be misused by leadership. I think KJ’s story is not unique, and yet it is rarely talked about in Christian circles.
I do believe we need to be willing to look at our motivations when in roles of leadership, especially how we can inadvertently misuse our power and control. KJ’s use of scripture to help us see the servant heart behind leadership is truly magnificent.
Walking through Psalm 23 phrase by phrase, therapist and author K.J. Ramsey explores the landscape of our fear, trauma, and faith. When she stepped through her own wilderness of spiritual abuse and religious trauma, K.J. discovered that courage is not the absence of anxiety but the practice of trusting we will be held and loved no matter what.
How can we cultivate courage when fear overshadows our lives? How do we hear the Voice of Love when hate and harm shout loud? This book offers an honest path to finding that there is still a Good Shepherd who is always…
When I was four and a half years old, I found my mother passed out on her bedroom floor. She had overdosed—shortly after giving birth to my baby brother, and she went on to spend six months in a psychiatric hospital. While she was away, I remember sitting in the backseat of our car with my brother as my father drove us to the store when our car collided head-on with another vehicle. In the months that followed, I became parentless for a period that seemed like years. That experience set the stage for my lifelong interest in the impacts of childhood trauma. As a therapist, it also sparked my passion for healing others.
I love this book as it helps explain to my female clients the shame they feel about mothering their children. I love that she describes in detail the vicious cycle from generation to generation that adult daughters can break through by understanding the lack of nurturance, protection, and guidance that was missing.
I like that this book gives tools and interventions to correct and heal their parenting and foster genuine emotional relationships.
An insatiable need for sex and love. Periods of overeating or starving. A pattern of unstable and painful relationships.
Does this sound painfully familiar?
Trauma counselor Kelly McDaniel has seen these traits over and over in clients who feel trapped in cycles of harmful behaviors-and are unable to stop.
Many of us find ourselves stuck in unhealthy habits simply because we don't see a better way. With Mother Hunger, McDaniel helps women break the cycle of destructive behavior by taking a fresh look at childhood trauma and its lasting impact. In doing so, she destigmatizes the shame that comes with…
I am an intuitive medium, artist, and animal communicator who has channelled for 30 years. I started by talking to dead people and pets, then expanded to talking to angels and guides, too. These are the books that kept me from losing my mind when I was transitioning from a "normal" scientific human (I was an executive-level pharma salesperson with an MS in Immunology) to a "woo-woo" who believes you can heal people with words and beliefs. I change lives being a channel, and you can't put the genie back in the bottle. These books allowed me to understand my new reality. They also made me believe in a world of love, forgiveness, and learning.
In my thirties, I had just come out of a long-term relationship and was on a blind date. We were talking about love, and I said, “What even love anyway?”; to which my date replied: “Love is letting go of fear.” He told me I had to read this book.
I have reread this book numerous times. It is a manual for leading a life of authentic integrity. I used to think of it as the Cliffs Notes for A Course in Miracles (a book I bought 30 years ago and have yet to read). Because, why? Everything you need to know is in this book!
The gist is this: there are only two prime emotions, love and fear. All other emotions are derivatives of those two emotions. We also have a choice, the choice for love.
After more than thirty years, Love Is Letting of Fear continues to be among the most widely read and best-loved classics on personal transformation. Both helpful and hopeful, this little gem of a guide offers twelve lessons to help us let go of the past and stay focused on the present as we step confidently toward the future.
Renowned all over the world as the founder of Attitudinal Healing, Dr. Gerald Jampolsky reminds us that the impediments to the life we long for are nothing more than the limitations imposed on us by our own minds. Revealing our true selves,…
Don’t mess with the hothead—or he might just mess with you. Slater Ibáñez is only interested in two kinds of guys: the ones he wants to punch, and the ones he sleeps with. Things get interesting when they start to overlap. A freelance investigator, Slater trolls the dark side of…
In my 20s, after always doing what I was “supposed” to, I found myself trapped in a relationship I wanted out of, in a job that barely paid the bills, and in a mindset of scarcity. After my birth control almost killed me, I dove into the mind-body connection that’s often stifled by sexism and societal expectations, becoming fascinated with pushing against the status quo and living more adventurously. I realized I needed to sincerely take my life decisions into my own hands. Since then, I’ve run ultramarathons, become an entrepreneur, and taught countless menstruators how to listen to their own bodies so they can build a life they love.
Why do women feel like we need to invite everyone to every party, throw weddings that are closer to our parents’ style than our own, and show up to networking nights that we know we won’t get anything out of?
I know this book is meant to be about hosting gatherings, but I’ve applied the principles to nearly everything I do in work and hobbies to add more intention, impact, and fulfillment. I’ve changed the way I sit at restaurants to encourage deeper conversations with friends. I’ve started to purposefully not invite certain people to certain parties since I know it would change the dynamic negatively for others. I’ve embraced the idea of “pop-up rules” at every event I host and expect guests to follow them so that the event is transformative and not boring.
Since reading Priya’s incredible framework, I’ve led extremely successful monthly events for my community, started…
"Hosts of all kinds, this is a must-read!" --Chris Anderson, owner and curator of TED
From the host of the New York Times podcast Together Apart, an exciting new approach to how we gather that will transform the ways we spend our time together—at home, at work, in our communities, and beyond.
In The Art of Gathering, Priya Parker argues that the gatherings in our lives are lackluster and unproductive--which they don't have to be. We rely too much on routine and the conventions of gatherings when we should focus on distinctiveness and the people involved. At a time when…
A shock diagnosis of a blinding eye disease at the age of 37, coupled with a trip to South Africa to write about the devastating toll of AIDS, drove home the importance of focusing on the Now. This newfound perspective led me to radically change my life and turn my author dream into reality. Eleven years later another shock diagnosis—this time with aggressive breast cancer—led me to the intersections between spirituality and science. That’s where I learned about the proven impact our thoughts and beliefs have on our health and overall life. I now use my transformative journey to empower audiences and help them pursue the lives they want—regardless of the challenges they face.
I have listened to the audio version of this book so many times that I can almost recite it. It features nine scientific experiments readers can perform on their own to demonstrate the validity of the spiritual principles Grout teaches—mainly that what we focus on we energize and draw to us. I absolutely love this book and have been amazed by the positive outcomes that have transpired in my life when I practice gratitude and focus on what I want rather than what I fear.
E-Squared is a lab manual with simple experiments to prove once and for all that there really is a good, loving, totally hip force in the universe. Rather than take it on faith, you are invited to conduct ten 48-hour experiments to prove each of the principles in this book. Yes, you read that right. It says prove.
The experiments, each of which can be conducted with absolutely no money and very little time expenditure, demonstrate that spiritual principles are as dependable as gravity, as consistent as Newton's 2nd law of motion. For years, you've been hoping and praying that…
Warren Berger considers himself to be a “questionologist.” He has written three books on the power of asking questions, starting with the best-selling A More Beautiful Question and his follow-up, The Book Of Beautiful Questions. His expertise on questioning has been sought out by companies like Pfizer and Starbucks, as well as by the US Army and the NASA space program. He has written for The New York Times and Wired magazine, and he writes the “Questionologist” column for Psychology Today. Warren believes that lifelong learning is fueled by curiosity and questions.
A big part of lifelong learning involves experimenting, trying new things, and picking up new skills. I must confess this can be challenging for me; I’m one of those people who sometimes gets frustrated or embarrassed when I try something new and find it doesn’t come easily to me. Maybe you’re the same way--if so, all the more reason to take inspiration from Vanderbilt’s book, which chronicles his efforts to learn how to play chess, surf, sing, juggle, and more. Woven in with those entertaining experiences are larger lessons about how we learn, and why it’s so beneficial to keep doing so. In the hands of a less skilled writer, a book like this--in which a journalist tries on a series of new hats--might seem gimmicky. But Vanderbilt is an insightful observer and storyteller who can even make traffic fascinating (that was the subject of a previous book of his,…
'Beginners belongs on the list of books that have changed the way I understand my own limitations.' Malcolm Gladwell
For many of us, the last time we learned a new skill was during childhood. We live in an age which reveres expertise but looks down on the beginner. Upon entering adulthood and middle age, we begin to shy away from trying new things, instead preferring to stay nestled firmly in our comfort zones.
Beginners asks the question: why are children the only ones allowed to experience the inherent fun of facing daily challenges? And could we benefit from embracing new…
I'm a psychologist and neuroscientist and I've been writing for the public about all things mind and behaviour for more than two decades. Something I've noticed in that time is that the question people want to know the answer to, perhaps more than any other, is how much we can ever truly change, deep down. After all, self-help advice is seemingly endless, but does any of it really work, or are we ultimately destined to always revert to type? That's what motivated me to begin delving into the latest science of personality – defined by psychology as the habits of emotion, behaviour, and thought that make us who we are.
There's a theory in psychology that alongside our basic traits, our personalities are also defined in part by the stories we tell about our lives – what's known as your narrative identity. In this inspirational book, Hardy shows how you can change who you are by reinterpreting your own past and, in effect, retelling your own story. As part of this process, you can think of past events as happening 'for you' instead of 'to you'. What's especially compelling about this book is that Hardy has made these changes in his own life and personality. You get to hear how he left behind his difficult youth, transformed into a dramatically more conscientious person, built a successful career as a psychologist, and became a loving husband and father.
Psychologist and bestselling author Benjamin Hardy, PhD, debunks the pervasive myths about personality that prevent us from learning—and provides bold strategies for personal transformation
In Personality Isn’t Permanent, Dr. Benjamin Hardy draws on psychological research to demolish the popular misconception that personality—a person’s consistent attitudes and behaviors—is innate and unchanging. Hardy liberates us from the limiting belief that our “true selves” are to be discovered, and shows how we can intentionally create our desired selves and achieve amazing goals instead. He offers practical, science-based advice to for personal-reinvention, including:
• Why personality tests such as Myers-Briggs and Enneagram are not…
