Here are 100 books that Where I Belong fans have personally recommended if you like
Where I Belong.
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Everyone experiences stress, loss, grief, and disconnection in life. We often feel isolated and alone in our sorrow and pain. For many years, I’ve shared openly about my personal challenges, starting in 2003 with my Babyfruit blog about my multiple miscarriages to the speeches I’ve given around the world in the 90s, to several of the books I’ve written. Through storytelling, I try to turn my heartbreak into lessons—to turn my pain into tangible steps that can help others navigate hard things and feel less alone. Helping others is part of my healing process.
As adults, we don’t always realize how our childhood—and our parents—have played a major role in how we feel about ourselves and our relationships. This is not about blaming parents but realizing how we may not have learned important aspects of healthy relationships because of our upbringing.
This book sets out to help people free themselves from the effects of growing up with immature parents to heal deep wounds that have led to feelings of anger or fear of abandonment. With that newfound freedom comes the ability to create positive relationships with oneself and others.
Are you one of the countless people who grew up with emotionally immature parents? If you suffer from this troubling parent/child dynamic, you may still recall painful moments from your childhood when your emotional needs were not met, when your feelings were dismissed, or when you took on adult levels of maturity in an effort to "compensate" for your parents' behavior. And while you likely cultivated strengths such as self-reliance and independence along the way- strengths that have served you well as an adult-having to be the emotionally mature person in your relationship with your parent is confusing and even…
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’m a lifelong bibliophile who hated school until I took community college Psychology 101 when I was 16 years old. I was hooked! Psychology was the first field I encountered with applications in everything about the human condition. My life's work and joy have been understanding the interrelatedness of mind, body, spirit, brain, culture, and ancestry and how to live with values, meaning, health, and connection. I am a psychologist at Stanford University, a lifelong learner, an adventurer, and a professor, and I still cram in as much pleasure reading as possible. Books have always been my lifeline and can be a healing tool and guide accessible to all.
I think it’s powerful and rare for a man to share his vulnerabilities so openly: childhood trauma, insecurities, substance abuse, breakdowns, setbacks. He isn’t sentimental or maudlin about it. Thompson writes clearly and matter-of-factly, allowing readers to witness the messy journey to post-traumatic growth.
This memoir is by a psychologist who shares his own history of traumatic abuse and his hospitalization in San Francisco following years of depression and a serious suicide attempt. His path to wellness is a bit extreme- ultramarathons in mountains for literally hundreds of miles- but I completely relate to how our bodies are key to holistic healing.
I love the descriptions of exercise and the outdoors as I also use outdoor time as a mental grounding (but for about 5 miles, not 200!) Spoiler alert: he is now married with children and working as a psychologist while continuing to practice running, meditation, and yoga regularly.…
A powerful, breathtaking memoir about a young man's descent into madness, and how running saved his life.
"Voluntary or involuntary?" asked the nurse who admitted J. M. Thompson to a San Francisco psychiatric hospital in January 2005. Following years of depression, ineffective medication, and therapy that went nowhere, Thompson feared he was falling into an inescapable darkness. He decided that death was his only exit route from the torture of his mind. After a suicide attempt, he spent weeks confined on the psych ward, feeling scared, alone, and trapped. One afternoon during an exercise break he experienced a sudden urge.…
I’m a lifelong bibliophile who hated school until I took community college Psychology 101 when I was 16 years old. I was hooked! Psychology was the first field I encountered with applications in everything about the human condition. My life's work and joy have been understanding the interrelatedness of mind, body, spirit, brain, culture, and ancestry and how to live with values, meaning, health, and connection. I am a psychologist at Stanford University, a lifelong learner, an adventurer, and a professor, and I still cram in as much pleasure reading as possible. Books have always been my lifeline and can be a healing tool and guide accessible to all.
My biggest problem with old-school PTSD books is that they are uni-dimensional and focus on a single big trauma. However, both as a therapist and just as a human, I understand that trauma is a multi-dimensional experience. There are different sizes and impacts, and it lasts from inter-generational trauma to systemic, ongoing trauma to inter-group and familial, as well as personal and current trauma. I’m on a big reading kick for Complex PTSD resources.
There’s also a dearth of culturally integrated and informed mental health books. Natalie’s book is fantastic because she has the knowledge and experience as a licensed mental health professional and the roots and wisdom of how to use reflection, narratives, and ceremony to de-program shame, imposter phenomenon, and all the baggage that weighs down historically marginalized readers. There’s a damn good reason Natalie has thousands of Instagram followers- she is relatable, bold, wise, and a kind…
It's time to heal the invisible wounds of complex trauma and reclaim your mind, body, and spirit.If you are a person of color who has experienced repeated trauma-such as discrimination, race-related verbal assault, racial stigmatization, poverty, sexual trauma, or interpersonal violence-you may struggle with intense feelings of anger, mistrust, or shame. You may feel unsafe or uncomfortable in your own body, or struggle with building and keeping close relationships. Sometimes you may feel very alone in your pain. But you are not alone. This groundbreaking work illuminates the phenomena of complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD) as it is uniquely experienced…
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’m a lifelong bibliophile who hated school until I took community college Psychology 101 when I was 16 years old. I was hooked! Psychology was the first field I encountered with applications in everything about the human condition. My life's work and joy have been understanding the interrelatedness of mind, body, spirit, brain, culture, and ancestry and how to live with values, meaning, health, and connection. I am a psychologist at Stanford University, a lifelong learner, an adventurer, and a professor, and I still cram in as much pleasure reading as possible. Books have always been my lifeline and can be a healing tool and guide accessible to all.
The joke (but truth) is that people go to therapy because of the people in their lives who refuse to go to therapy. “It’s Not You” is an ideal guide for people who are emotionally beaten down, self-questioning, and depleted from narcissistic abuse. Dr. Ramani provides knowledge so that one can identify the patterns and tactics of narcissistic abuse. This is super important to heal from self-blame and also to prevent falling for future manipulations.
Like my other recommendations- this book is fabulous because it comes from an expert who can channel research and knowledge into understandable terms and blend in relatable narratives from other people. It’s also a book that makes space for grieving dreams and hopes of even toxic relationships. I especially love the advice on how to work on becoming more “narcissist resistant” so that the next time a charming manipulator shows up, you’ll see the red…
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES AND SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
"A compassionate road map and survival guide for people in narcissistic relationships..." -Jay Shetty
From clinical psychologist and expert in narcissistic relationships Dr Ramani Durvasula, a guide to protecting and healing yourself from the daily harms of narcissism
REDISCOVER WHO YOU ARE AFTER YEARS OF INVALIDATION
Dealing with a narcissist is hard. One day their confidence and charisma pull you in, the next day they gaslight, wreck your self-confidence, and leave you wondering what you could have done differently. Clinical Psychologist and narcissism expert Dr Ramani is here to help. Drawing on…
Born in the Philippines and raised in the US from the age of 4, Renee didn't see the stories of her culture reflected in books until she was a freshman in college at UC Berkeley. Renee wrote her first novel, The Hour of Daydreams, which was inspired by the ghost stories her family told. It received the inaugural Institute for Immigration Research New American Voices Finalist award. Her children’s book One Hundred Percent Me is the book she wishes she could’ve read to her own daughters.With her latest book, The ABCs of Asian American History, Renee hopes young readers will celebrate the vast contributions of Asian Americans to US culture, politics, arts, and society.
This book reveals a fascinating picture of mothers from China traveling to the US to give birth on American soil.
Factory worker Scarlett is one such mother, and her journey to safety, friendship, motherhood, and love, told with Hua’s impeccable gift for storytelling, is an adventure you will cheer for.
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • In a powerful debut about modern-day motherhood, immigration, and identity, a pregnant Chinese woman stakes a claim to the American dream in California.
“Utterly absorbing.”—Celeste Ng • “A marvel of a first novel.”—O: The Oprah Magazine • “The most eye-opening literary adventure of the year.”—Entertainment Weekly
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The Washington Post • NPR • Real Simple
Holed up with other mothers-to-be in a secret maternity home in Los Angeles, Scarlett Chen is far from her native China, where she worked in a factory and fell in love with the…
Mark Greenside has been a civil rights activist, Vietnam War protestor, anti-draft counselor, Vista Volunteer, union leader, and college professor. He holds B.S. and M.A. degrees from the University of Wisconsin and his stories have appeared in numerous journals and magazines. He presently lives in Alameda, California, where he continues to teach and be politically active, and Brittany, France, where he still can’t do anything without asking for help.
A twenty year old American woman goes to Paris to paint, meets a French artist, marries, has a child, and together buy a farmhouse and make a summer home and art studios in rural Brittany: that story. A memoir.
The book was published in 2008, but the story takes place in the early 1960s when rural Brittany was closer to the 19th century than the 21st. I was in Paris in 1967, and it was still possible to rent a hotel room for under five dollars a night, to travel in Europe for ten dollars a day. In 1967, you could not safely drink the water in France, including in Paris, and you had to have proof of a typhus vaccine to return to the U.S. It was still more Henry Miller’s Paris than Macron’s.
This was the time of the last of every day berets, blue…
The enchanting memoir of an artist?s liberating sojourn in France during the sixties?and the friendship that transformed her life
While in her late twenties, Marjorie Price leaves the comfort of her Chicago suburb to strike out on her own in Paris and hone her artistic talents. Dazzled by everything French, she falls in love with a volatile French painter and they purchase an old farmhouse in the Breton countryside. When Marjorie?s seemingly idyllic marriage begins to unravel, she forms a friendship with an elderly peasant woman, Jeanne, who is illiterate, has three cows to her name, and has never left…
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…
I began writing Ali’s incredible international odyssey as a film, but once I discovered the epic breadth of his journey, I decided on a book first.
For 3 years I worked intensely with Ali. Not only was it a passionate and personal epic tale about love and loss, overcoming insurmountable odds, endurance and survival, but it hit a chord with readers from all walks of life, bringing understand to why people fled their countries, and help to change attitudes on refugees from fear to compassion. After three years on the road with the book I have now completed the screenplay.
This wonderfully written true story is told as a wild madcap, can’t put it down, tragic comedy, which is incredibly funny but carries with it an underbelly of loss and heartbreak.
As he struggles to straddle the demands of his Iraqi-Iranian cultural mix as a refugee in Australia, Osamah makes some disastrous choices, that lead him down a complex maze to the truth of where his own heart lies.
Good Muslim Boy tells the story of Osamah Sami's journey from Iran during the Iraq war to the suburbs of Australia and his quest to fit into his new life whilst trying to stay a good Muslim boy. In turns comic and tragic, Osamah's story explores the universal truths of growing up, falling in love, marriage, family and following one's dream; whilst also telling the immigrant's story of straddling two cultures and the difficult expectations of family and faith versus fitting in. Osamah begins by recounting his youth under Islamic rule in Iran: the mischievous antics that he and his…
I became an economist because I realized that economics was a powerful tool that would help society solve vexing problems. While economics has limits, it has so much to offer in terms of better policy design for tackling everything from climate change to economic inequality. My life’s work has been devoted to both economic research and helping others understand the insights of economics. I spent many years in academia teaching economics and writing papers, and I authored Open in an attempt to make the complexities of international economics more transparent. I’ve also had the chance to work firsthand on some of these issues in the early part of the Biden Administration at the US Treasury.
When I began researching the economics of immigration, I expected to find that my prejudice in favor of immigrants needed more nuance. However, even more than I suspected, the economic literature is resounding in describing the many large economic benefits of immigration. Streets of Golddescribes how essential immigration has been to American economic success, and it provides a strong argument for a more open immigration policy.
Immigration is one of the most fraught, and possibly most misunderstood, topics in American social discourse-yet, in most cases, the things we believe about immigration are based largely on myth, not facts. Using the tools of modern data analysis and ten years of pioneering research, new evidence is provided about the past and present of the American Dream, debunking myths fostered by political opportunism and sentimentalized in family histories, and draw counterintuitive conclusions, including:
* Upward Mobility: Children of immigrants from nearly every country, especially those of poor immigrants, do better economically than children of U.S.-born residents - a pattern…
Ilya Somin is a Professor of Law at George Mason University. He is the author of Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom, Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government is Smarter, and The Grasping Hand: Kelo v. City of New London, and the Limits of Eminent Domain. Somin has also published articles in a variety of popular press outlets, including The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, CNN, The Atlantic, and USA Today. He is a regular contributor to the popular Volokh Conspiracy law and politics blog, affiliated with Reason.
Perhaps the strongest argument against expanded migration rights is the fear that too many of the “wrong” kind of immigrants might kill the goose the laid the golden egg that makes a country attractive to migrants in the first place. If immigrants have harmful cultural values, vote for dangerous political leaders, or otherwise undermine the political and economic system, they could degrade the host nation’s institutions. In the extreme case, they might even replicate the same awful conditions that led them to flee their country of origin. Wretched Refuse is the most thorough analysis and refutation of such concerns. Nowrasteh and Powell use both historical and modern evidence to show that institutional concerns about immigration are largely misplaced and that migrants strengthen liberal democracy far more than they undermine it.
Economic arguments favoring increased immigration restrictions suggest that immigrants undermine the culture, institutions, and productivity of destination countries. But is this actually true? Nowrasteh and Powell systematically analyze cross-country evidence of potential negative effects caused by immigration relating to economic freedom, corruption, culture, and terrorism. They analyze case studies of mass immigration to the United States, Israel, and Jordan. Their evidence does not support the idea that immigration destroys the institutions responsible for prosperity in the modern world. This nonideological volume makes a qualified case for free immigration and the accompanying prosperity.
I love history and learning about the lives my ancestors lived. I grew up on my grandfather’s farm in Holly Springs, Mississippi. My grandfather taught me lots of things as I watched history unfold in the segregated South. I infuse those lessons in my books. I love books in which the author puts some aspect of themselves in their story because I do the same. This makes the story come alive.
I love this book because it is told by a girl who is the daughter of immigrants.
I was fascinated as Sumi described her life watching her mother switch between two languages, the language she was born into and English, depending on the situation she was in. I love this book because it shows the joy of being a multi-lingual person. I also like that Sumi’s mother talks to her in both languages, not favoring one over the other.
In a sparkling debut authored by a sixteen-year-old daughter of immigrants, this ode to the power of multilingualism gives voice to the lasting benefits of speaking with more than one tongue. Sumi's mother can speak two languages, Malayalam and English. She can switch between them at the speed of sound: one language when talking to Sumi's grandmother, another when she addresses the shopkeeper. Sometimes she speaks a combination of both. Could it be she possesses a superpower? With awe and curiosity, young Sumi recounts the story of her mother's migration from India and how she came to acquire two tongues,…
