The best way to support Philosophistry, while also doing you or your friends a great service, is buying one of these books. These are life-changing books. They've changed my life, and if you like the writing on Philosophistry, it's likely they will affect yours too. These books are also some of the best-of-the-best ever written on each of their topics. The self-help field has a bad reputation, but it's simply because the field is so new. Any of these books are shining examples of what self-help should be.
Here they are, in order of when I read them. My life-path can be charted based on when I read these books.
How to Win Friends and Influence People
(Read in the summer of 1996)
Dale Carnegie was a pioneer of self-help in the early 1900s. He introduced the innovative concept of "human relations" to Corporate America. I was given this book as a gift the summer before I entered High School, and it made me reverse my social demeanor 180 degrees. The clinching quote that stuck to me is, "You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you." In general, this book taught me that I don't have to accept the way I socialize. The way we socialize is something we can actively shape.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
(Summer of 1999)
This is one of the most well-known books on this list. And for good reason. It is one of the most effective books at causing change. Read it, at the very least, as a way to understand the best rhetoric of self-help. I got two major things from this book. The first is the importance of leading a centered life. I read this book during the height of the dot-com boom, when I was working two start-ups and going through school at the time. And this book made it clear to me how screwed-up my priorities were. The second big thing I got from this book, which I only really seized in the past couple of years, is principle-centered living.
Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
(Winter of 2002)
If you only have to read one book about positive psychology, read this one. This is one of the most frequently cited books ever. The concept of flow refers to those moments when athletes are "in the zone" or when a song writer has "lost himself" in his music. These peak experiences may seem rare, but Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi unlocks the secrets and generalizes the concepts on how to handle any activity optimally. This book serves as a gateway to other books about improving the quality of life.
Authentic Happiness
(Summer of 2003)
This is another great gateway to the world of positive psychology. It's written by Martin Seligman, a former president of the American Psychological Association, who has been the most prominent champion of the positive psychology movement. This book is a summary of his ideas and the ideas of the movement. This book became a lightning rod for me as far as evaluating my priorities. I believe that reading this book laid the foundation for me putting aside my asceticism.
What Color Is Your Parachute?
(Winter of 2008)
This was selected by the Library of Congress' Center for the Book as one of "25 Books That Have Shaped Readers' Lives" (The list includes The Bible and The Catcher in the Rye). I flipped through a handful of career-finding books at the time, and this one seemed the most effective at focusing my direction. It is truly a tome. I refer to it frequently, and it reliably gives me hope about finding my path. And not just in my work-life; the ideas in this book go really deep to the heart of self-actualization. If you've ever been frustrated with where your life is going, this is the book for you.
The Purpose Driven Life
(Winter of 2009)
This is one of the best-selling books of all time, up there with The Bible. You may not know it from the title, but this is a Christian book. I read this, out of a contrarian's curiosity based on all the protests against Rick Warren, the pastor who wrote this book. Rick Warren is against gay marriage, and he became a target of controversy when Obama selected him to deliver the Invocation at the Inauguration. Having said that, I haven't spent much time with organized religion, but I found this book to be really effective at opening my mind. As a secular liberal, me and my cohort have prided ourselves on being open-minded, but we are often close-mined to mainstream religious works. Reading this book—and more importantly, treating it like a workbook and writing down answers to the questions in it—really helped me understand, "Oh, so this is why 95% of the people on Earth believe in God." It may be too early to tell, but this may one day, looking back, turn out to be the most significant out of all of these books I have read.