Can a book really help you feel better considering the state of the world right now? And what’s more, will this post seem like encouragement to turn a blind eye to situations we really need to be paying attention to?

Here’s my current answer to those questions. We can strive to do what’s in our power to change, but we also need to take care of ourselves. If we can do that while connecting our own human heart with those of others – and stumbling into the rabbit hole of another culture and worldview – then all the better.

I’ll be honest – my reading has become very low-key lately. I’ve been practicing my Danish by reading Harry Potter og Fangen fra Azkaban at the slowest pace imaginable, and also listening to the audiobook of Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane.

In the following recommendations, you’ll find a few different angles to relieve your own anxiety at the state of the world – or, alternatively, to just sit with your feelings and learn more about the place humankind is in and where we might go from here.

You might also like: 6 books to read during burnout when you feel exhausted

10 books to read when you’re worried about the world and its future

1. How to Be a Good Creature: A Memoir in Thirteen Animals by Sy Montgomery

If you’re feeling anxious, what’s in your control that you can change? To begin with, think of the kindness, generosity, and love that are innate parts of you. This beautiful memoir of a life well-lived with animals is a wonderful reminder to do so.

“Thousands of billions of mothers—from the gelatinous ancestors of Octavia, to my own mother—have taught their kind to love, and to know that love is the highest and best use of a life. Love alone matters, and makes its object worthy. And love is a living thing, even if Octavia’s eggs were not.”

3. The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet by John Green

Reddit user beastie_boo described John Green’s new essay collection as “the right balance of ‘everything is pointless but I’m still hopeful about the world'”. That’s just what some of us need right now. It can be the best reminder to notice beauty, appreciate what matters, share our kindness and love with others, and limit what leads to stress, dread, and agonising over hypothetical questions.

In The Anthropocene Reviewed, John Green brings both humour and food for thought via his reviews of different facets of our human-centered life on Earth on a five-star scale. Dive into the book as he charts the contradictions of contemporary humanity with reviews spanning the QWERTY keyboard, sunsets, Canada geese, and Penguins of Madagascar.

4. Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World by Tim Marshall

If your way of dealing with the stress and uncertainty of geopolitics is to learn more about it, Prisoners of Geography is an accessible and intriguing place to start.

Tim Marshall offers a fascinating look at how the world’s political landscape is shaped by its physical landscape: the mountains, rivers, deserts, and terrain of our world. Iain and I listened to it as an audiobook a few years ago, and we’ve just revisited the first chapter (conveniently focused on Russia) this week.

5. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer

What better book to help you to breathe deeper and marvel at the wonder of nature and its seasons than Braiding Sweetgrass?

Admiring the natural world is a first step to protecting it, even in the smaller ways accessible to us via our day-to-day choices about how to live our own lives, alongside the miniature ecosystems we create in our window boxes, balconies, and gardens.

“How do I show my girls I love them on a morning in June? I pick them wild strawberries. On a February afternoon we build snowmen and then sit by the fire. In March we make maple syrup. We pick violets in May and go swimming in July. On an August night we lay out blankets and watch meteor showers. In November, that great teacher the woodpile comes into our lives. That’s just the beginning. How do we show our children our love? Each in our own way by a shower of gifts and a heavy rain of lessons.”

6. Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future by Elizabeth Kolbert

One way to look at human civilization, says Elizabeth Kolbert, is as a ten-thousand-year exercise in defying nature. In Under a White Sky, she examines how the very sorts of interventions that have imperiled our planet are increasingly seen as the best hope for its salvation.

Along the way, she meets biologists who are trying to preserve the world’s rarest fish in a single tiny pool in the middle of the Mojave; engineers who are turning carbon emissions to stone in Iceland; Australian researchers who are trying to develop a “super coral” that can survive on a hotter globe; and physicists who are contemplating shooting tiny diamonds into the stratosphere to cool the earth.

7. The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune

The House in the Cerulean Sea is one of the most popular “hug in a book” recommendations from the last few years (especially if you frequent bookish parts of Reddit).

It’s the heartwarming fantasy tale of Linus Baker, a 40-year old who leads a quiet life and has a dull job at the Department in Charge of Magical Youth. But one day, he’s summoned by Extremely Upper Management and given a highly classified assignment – travelling to an orphanage where six dangerous children reside, and deciding their future.

8. Peace Is a Practice: An Invitation to Breathe Deep and Find a New Rhythm for Life by Morgan Harper Nichols

Morgan Harper Nichols has a voice of such beauty and comfort, and her writing offers a welcome balm for the soul during difficult times. Her latest book, Peace is a Practice, was published in February 2022 and offers an invitation to breathe deeper and find a new rhythm for your life.

9. Modern Nature by Derek Jarman

In 1986, Derek Jarman was suddenly faced with an uncertain future as he discovered he was HIV positive. To find solace, he decided to make a garden at his cottage on the barren coast of Dungeness in England’s southeast. While some plants perished beneath wind and sea spray, others flourished and created brilliant, unexpected beauty.

Modern Nature is both a diary of the garden and a meditation by Jarman on his own life: from his childhood to his time as a young gay man in the 1960s and his renowned career as an artist, writer, and filmmaker.

“But the wind does not stop for my thoughts. It whips across the flooded gravel pits drumming up waves on their waters that glint hard and metallic in the night, over the shingle, rustling the dead gorse and skeletal bugloss, running in rivulets through the parched grass – while I sit here in the dark holding a candle that throws my divided shadow across the room and gathers my thoughts to the flame like moths.

10. 10% Happier by Dan Harris

After having a nationally televised panic attack on Good Morning America, Dan Harris knew he had to make some changes. On a bizarre adventure of self-discovery, Harris learned that what he always thought was his greatest asset – the incessant voice in his head – was actually the source of his problems (and as he writes, “kind of an asshole.”)

Something he always presumed to be either impossible or useless became the quietly powerful tool to change everything: meditation.

“There’s no point in being unhappy about things you can’t change, and no point being unhappy about things you can.”

The post Books for when you’re worried about the state of the world appeared first on Tolstoy Therapy.

In his Meditations, he shares how we seek retreats for ourselves in all manner of external ways, while forgetting that we can instead retreat into ourselves at any time – “into your own little territory within yourself [with] no agonies, no tensions.”

When the world is like nothing we’ve ever experienced, the wisdom of Marcus Aurelius and the power of having a calm and gentle inner landscape couldn’t be more valuable.

I spend a lot of time in my own head, which I don’t see as a bad thing. By choosing what I think about, I can select the furniture of my own mind. I spring clean and dust the cobwebs by gently evicting the thoughts I’d rather not allow to linger. And by encouraging joy and gratitude, I put some fresh flowers in there and open the windows.

Alongside this general upkeep, I furnish my mind by retreating into books. With every book I read, I have new places to imagine. There are Siberian forests, exotic beaches, magical libraries, and houses by the river to visit when I need a break. The journeys are endless – there are always more books to read.

Here are a few of the books I’ve loved retreating into – I hope they’re as soothing and rejuvenating for your mind as well.

“Men seek retreats for themselves – in the country, by the sea, in the hills – and you yourself are particularly prone to this yearning. But all this is quite unphilosophic, when it is open to you, at any time you want, to retreat into yourself. No retreat offers someone more quiet and relaxation than into his own mind, especially if he can dip into thoughts there which put him at immediate and complete ease: and by ease I simply mean a well-ordered life.”

Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, translated by Martin Hammond

Where the Forest Meets the Stars by Glendy Vanderah

In the world of Glendy Vanderah’s novel, we meet Joanna Teale. After the loss of her mother and her own battle with breast cancer, Joanna returns to her graduate research on nesting birds in rural Illinois, determined to prove that her recent hardships have not broken her.

She throws herself into her work from dusk to dawn, until her solitary routine is disrupted by the appearance of a mysterious child who shows up at her cabin barefoot and covered in bruises.

The girl calls herself Ursa, and she claims to have been sent from the stars to witness five miracles. For the rest of the story, venture into the unique world of Where the Forest Meets the Stars.

“the flower whisperer who made everyone and everything around her bloom. Her light is still with us, growing love across the universe…”

War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

One small piece of joy for me in the global crisis has been seeing how more people are searching for tips on reading Tolstoy and finding my writing. I find that so wonderful to see – it’s an excellent time for Tolstoy.

If you decide to jump into the universe of War and Peace, try to immerse yourself in it. Don’t feel you need to remember every name of every character (there are far too many), just let the writing wash over you.

The best translation I’ve found for that is the Anthony Briggs, which you can read in this beautiful hardbound edition from Penguin Clothbound Classics:

The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnim

A retreat to the Italian Riviera, where everything is in full bloom, soothing, and gleaming with freedom.

“That evening was the evening of the full moon. The garden was an enchanted place where all the flowers seemed white. The lilies, the daphnes, the orange-blossom, the white stocks, the white pinks, the white roses – you could see these as plainly as in the daytime; but the coloured flowers existed only as fragrance.”

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah

Pick up The Great Alone to head back to 1974, when Cora Allbright and her husband, Ernt – a recently returned Vietnam veteran scarred by the war – uproot their thirteen-year-old daughter, Leni, to start a new life in Alaska.

Utterly unprepared for the weather and the isolation, but welcomed by the close-knit community, they fight to build a home in this harsh, beautiful wilderness.

“Books are the mile markers of my life. Some people have family photos or home movies to record their past. I’ve got books. Characters. For as long as I can remember, books have been my safe place.”

How to Be a Good Creature: A Memoir in Thirteen Animals by Sy Montgomery

Retreat into a book that celebrates the joy of sharing a life with animals, learning from them how to be a good creature ourselves. Heartwarming and wholesome, it makes for a perfect gift for animal lovers (am I alone in sending myself more book gifts recently?)

The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng

This book shaped everything I read afterwards. It’s so beautifully crafted. When I think back to Tan Twan Eng’s writing, I think of light rain over trees, gentle birdsong at dusk, and sitting quietly alone in a garden that’s well-tended without keeping the wild out.

The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

Journey to Rivendell and the Shire, whether for the first time or as a repeat visit, to appreciate the best of what life has to offer in a world that isn’t always wholly good.

“Elrond’s house was perfect, whether you liked food or sleep or story-telling or singing (or reading), or just sitting and thinking best, or a pleasant mixture of them all. Merely to be there was a cure for weariness. … Evil things did not come into the secret valley of Rivendell.”

The Living Mountain by Nan Shepherd

Even if you can’t venture out and explore right now, reading The Living Mountain is one of the next best things. Divided into chapters about the elements of mountain adventures – Frost and Snow, The Plants, Senses, Being – The Living Mountain marks Nan Shepherd as one of Scotland’s finest nature writers.

Nan Shepherd is remembered on a Scottish banknote with her wonderful quote, “It’s a grand thing, to get leave to live.”

“This is the river. Water, that strong white stuff, one of the four elemental mysteries, can here be seen at its origins. Like all profound mysteries, it is so simple that it frightens me. It wells from the rock, and flows away. For unnumbered years it has welled from the rock, and flowed away. It does nothing, absolutely nothing, but be itself.”

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami

Murakami is a master of creating universes. Most readers fall into categories of adoring his writing, despising it with a soaring passion, or feeling utterly indifferent and unable to get past a few pages.

If you’re new to Murakami, there will be cats, whisky, inexplicable truths, and wonder. Kafka on the Shore is my favourite and high up the queue on my re-reading list.

“It’s like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.”

Norwegian Wood: Chopping, Stacking, and Drying Wood the Scandinavian Way by Lars Mytting

A fun outlier on this list, Lars Mytting’s book is part guide to chopping wood and part philosophical pondering. It’s a window into Scandinavian culture that’s ideal for kindling your imagination on a lazy afternoon.

Epic Hikes of the World by Lonely Planet

This is one book I’m retreating into often while spending more time at home. Walking the Arctic Circle Trail in Greenland last summer was one of the most transformational achievements of my life – I didn’t realise quite how strong I was until I completed it.

Now I’m looking to this beautifully-designed Lonely Planet book to help inspire my next adventure. Will it be Sweden, New Zealand, or one of the great American trails? Time will tell. In the meantime, my imagination can enjoy all of the great wildernesses on our beautiful planet.

Underland: A Deep Time Journey by Robert Macfarlane

To retreat into the depths of the earth and venture many millions of years before we existed, read Robert Macfarlane. His other books are incredible too – I love Mountains of the Mind – and will have you planning your next adventure.

More hand-picked book recommendations:

• 12 of the best audiobooks to enjoy now
• 8 books to appreciate how beautiful life really is
• 7 self-care books for relaxing and unwinding with
• 12 calming books to help you take a deep breath and relax
• The 10 best books I read in 2019

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It can seem counterintuitive that we get more done when we work less. But it’s not really a surprise at all. We can’t perform well with a depleted engine. We need to balance exertion with rejuvenation, otherwise we’re running off an empty tank – which isn’t going to get us far at all.

Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang is a wonderful reminder of the power of rest. And it’s a reminder I needed.

“If you want rest, you have to take it. You have to resist the lure of busyness, make time for rest, take it seriously, and protect it from a world that is intent on stealing it.”

I first came across Alex Soojung-Kim Pang via his masterclass on the Calm app; an app I use most days to help me unwind, meditate, or fall asleep. I listened to the masterclass as I closed my laptop for the day, put my coat on, and headed out for a walk around Glasgow where I was spending the last few weeks.

The author talked about how the creatives and scientists we look up to generally balance their impressive work output with deep rest and distance away from their work. They don’t sit at their desk for twenty hours a day, five days a week. They head out for a run, read a book, or hit the climbing gym with friends.

In a world where overwork is increasingly normal (and even expected), rest is more sacred than ever.

We can’t expect ourselves to produce our best work – in our careers, families, relationships, and creative projects – if we’re not taking our need for rest seriously.

After reading this book on a Friday, I ran a bath, soaked for half an hour, and had a relaxing evening of bedtime tea, yoga, and music before bed. I slept better than I had in weeks. That weekend I went to stay with my boyfriend’s family for a Burn’s Night dinner and didn’t touch my work.

On Monday, I got back to my desk and raced through an article I’d been seriously struggling to write the previous week. I poured a cup of tea and worked through more of my to-do list with far less resistance than I was expecting.

I needed the weekend of rest a lot more than I thought. At two o’clock, after getting enough done for the day, I closed my work tabs, called my boyfriend, and started the resting process again.

I’m more aware than ever that I need to keep this habit up. After all, if I don’t say no to overwork, my body will. (For more on this, read When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress by Dr. Gabor Maté.)

Are you getting enough rest? Are you giving your body the relaxation it needs, and your mind the variation it thrives on, to help you feel your best?

Get a copy of Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less as a reminder of the power of rest throughout our lives, especially the busiest moments when we need it most.

The post A reminder to rest (and why we get more done when we do) appeared first on Tolstoy Therapy.

“You can buy a man’s hours off him, you can steal his days from him, or you can rob him of his whole life, but no one can take away from any man so much as a single moment. That’s the way it is.”

It was nearly one year ago when I first read A Whole Life by Robert Seethaler. The ski season was about to kick in, snow was falling outside, and it was an ideal day to stay curled up with a book in my Swiss mountain town.

It was one of the most starkly and quietly beautiful books I’ve ever read.

How it fell into my hands added to its meaning. My boyfriend and I had taken a break from our relationship since the summer, and we’d only just decided to meet up with each other. Over lunch, he passed me a copy of A Whole Life.

He’d read it, I hadn’t, and I was caught between reading it slowly and tearing through it. I tried to balance somewhere between the two and read it on that snowy weekend (it’s not a very long book). I knew why he had given it to me. It was my perfect book. 

It’s the story of Andreas Egger, a man who knows every path, contour and secret of his mountains in the Austrian Alps. He grew up with them and is closer to them than to any other being. Without them, he wouldn’t quite be Andreas Egger.

A Whole Life is about a life lived simply, quietly and humbly by the mountains. It’s a story of just one unremarkable existence that is nonetheless extraordinary.

“He couldn’t remember where he had come from, and ultimately he didn’t know where he would go. But he could look back without regret on the time in between, his life, with a full-throated laugh and utter amazement.”

The book design is beautiful – it’s another book with mountains on the cover, like my recent read Silence: In the Age of Noise by Erling Kagge – and everything about the writing delighted me. Heartbreaking, yes, but perfect. A Whole Life brought me to tears (at least once).

If you want to retreat into a cosy reading nook and set your imagination off into the mountains, get a copy of A Whole Life.

It’s a book for finding beauty and meaning in the little things, spending time in nature, experiencing loss, rebuilding a life, and simply living a life. See where the adventure takes you, both in the book and in your own life.

The post A perfect book about life, loss, and the mountains: A Whole Life by Robert Seethaler appeared first on Tolstoy Therapy.