100 Books Like The Way of Tenderness

I found this book to be an invaluable resource for parenting. I love how Bertin translates complex scientific research into practical, actionable strategies that address everyday challenges. The book's focus on fostering resilience and happiness in children really resonated with me, providing clear, evidence-based practices that I can apply to support my child’s development.

I particularly appreciate the way Bertin makes scientific findings accessible and relevant, helping me feel more confident in my parenting choices. This book is essential for any parent or caregiver who wants to nurture a child's well-being with a grounded, research-backed approach

I was profoundly inspired by this book because it masterfully blends ancient wisdom with contemporary insights on yoga and meditation. I love how Stanley guides readers toward inner peace and spiritual awakening through both accessible and profound techniques.

The book’s focus on deep self-care practices really resonated with me, helping me to cultivate a more balanced and luminous life. Stanley’s approach made it easy for me to deepen my meditation practice while embracing the transformative power of self-care. This book is a must-read for anyone seeking to enrich their spiritual journey and achieve a harmonious, vibrant life.

I found this book to be deeply enlightening because it reshaped my understanding of true happiness. I appreciate how Spira’s teachings challenge conventional views by revealing the inherent joy within each of us. The way he guides readers to see beyond transient emotions and connect with their true nature really resonated with me.

I think this book should be on the bookshelf of any sincere spiritual seeker who wants to find lasting fulfillment and peace. It’s a profound read for anyone seeking to uncover a deeper sense of contentment and spiritual clarity.

I was struck by how this book is an inspiring guide for integrating mindfulness into all aspects of life. I enjoy how Tull, with her background as a Zen monastic, blends personal stories and practical exercises to make mindfulness accessible and actionable. The book’s focus on relational mindfulness really resonated with me, helping me deepen my connections with others and foster a sense of shared power.

I was particularly moved by the emphasis on cultivating deep listening and compassionate leadership. This book has truly empowered me to live more mindfully and engage in a more sustainable and compassionate way of being.

This book takes a tour through the most impactful and influential popular literature circulating in the 19th and early 20th centuries—the stories that laid the groundwork for a collective Anglo-American consciousness—and explains how these stories produced a set of feminist ideologies that were reliant upon a racist and imperialist imaginary. Whether it is her chapter on the “King and I” in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” or her tracking of the “picanninies” romping through “Peter Pan” and a “Passage to India,” Donaldson explains how we came to associate feminism with the ideologies of slavery and colonialism in the deepest recesses of our imaginations.

Through her marriage to Ferdinand of Aragon, Isabel of Castile united the two most powerful kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula, becoming the first early Renaissance queen to rule in her own right. As mother to five daughters and one son, the formidable ruler provided them with an unparalleled education and procured their marriages to the reigning dynasties of Europe. Much of what is known about Isabel, however, has relied on medieval chronicles and her own image-making as a legitimate heir, devoted wife, and pious ruler. Examining how this public image was created, Barbara Weissberger demonstrates the strategies adopted by both her supporters and her detractors when negotiating the challenges posed by her gender and her political program for converting all non-Catholics to Catholicism.

While her followers viewed her as a virtuous and submissive queen, her detractors imagined her as a rapacious vixen, whose illicit power threatened gender norms, creating anxiety… show more.

Ann Leckie is not an author known for standard narration or gender roles, but she is known for great science fiction. Which is why I was astounded and delighted by her fantasy novel, The Raven Tower. Told in the second person, just when you think you know who is spinning the tale…well, I won’t give anything away except to say this is an amazing book filled with gods and rituals, tradition and sacrifice, that will keep you guessing right to the end.

This book features a young Helen of Sparta’s adventures with her siblings, who are notable figures of their own in myths and legends. I’m a sucker for those mythological connections I first discovered in Goddess of Yesterday, and this is also very similar to it in that it might be marketed as a children’s book. Still, the themes and events are intense, and they hold up amazingly. 

I love this version of Helen. She’s adventurous, smart, and stubborn. Helen is so often portrayed as a vain villain or an unwitting scapegoat, so it’s really refreshing to read something that acknowledges that she was more than just a pretty face. She was the princess of Sparta. She was raised to be tough, tactical, and warlike. 

The more I learned about the social structures and constructs that perpetuate violence against women, the more I saw how deeply rooted the ideas are in the stories that we tell—the stories that we’ve been telling for centuries. Why aren’t women believed? Where do the misogynistic tropes come from?

This book shows how our culture’s origin stories have been shaped by men, and as Lesser writes, “embedded in the stories are the values and priorities we live by, and what we believe about women and men, power and war, sex and love.” What I love about this book is that it reimagines if women had been the storytellers, and empowers readers to redefine women and power. 

Gridiron Gourmet likewise returns to a world somewhat familiar to me. Having grown up American, with a father and brother seriously enamored of football, I understood a certain amount about American ideas of sports and manhood. Football (and other men’s sports) had also played an important role in the community of Bushler Bay (on the Olympic Peninsula), where I had lived and conducted ethnographic research among loggers in the 1970s. At that time, folks there had seen football as one important avenue for young men to learn teamwork, competition, and discipline – traits considered key in making a livelihood. Gridiron Gourmet builds on my own understanding, adding the current emphasis on foods men consider appropriate and ‘manly’ to eat. Although I had some sense of this preference, this book clarifies common perspectives among American men in much more detail.