The good news: If resilience doesn’t come naturally, it’s possible to cultivate it. Whether you’re navigating a global pandemic, addressing racial inequalities, or coping with the loss of a loved one, there are books that can offer support. Our list includes some straightforward self-help options, like Freedom From Anxious Thoughts and Feelings, and memoir-style stories like Between the World and Me. Here are our top picks for books about resilience: RELATED: Resilience Resource Center
1. ‘Freedom From Anxious Thoughts and Feelings: A Two-Step Mindfulness Approach for Moving Beyond Fear and Worry,’ by Scott Symington, PhD
Practicing mindfulness can improve overall health, and in this short guide Symington provides visual tools for changing your response to difficult thoughts and feelings. In short, it can help you develop a blueprint that you can rely on to help deal with anxious emotions. Symington’s approach is practical, and easy to understand and apply — essential for anyone who is looking for ways to be more present, and stay focused on the things that bring you joy.
2. ‘Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy,’ by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant
Two weeks after her husband’s sudden death, Sandberg was preparing for a father-child activity at her child’s school. “I want Dave,” she cried, referring to her late husband. Her friend replied, “Option A is not available,” and then promised to help her make the most of Option B. Sandberg’s book is part memoir, part how-to, and she devotes several chapters to raising resilient kids and finding strength in family. Helping children identify their unique strengths is essential, she says, and encouraging kids to help others is one way to find those strengths.
3. ‘Between the World and Me,’ by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Renowned journalist-turned-author Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote Between the World and Me as a letter to his 15-year old son. Coates profoundly shares how racism is inherently part of America’s history and identity. He brings voice to his own understanding of racism through his experience growing up Black in America. Coates offers both insight and consolation to his son who may walk a similar path. Resilience is a persistent theme throughout Coates’ lyrical prose as topics include the social constructs of race, fear living in a Black body, the false pretenses of the American Dream, police brutality, and body autonomy. Between the World and Me won the 2015 National Book Award for Nonfiction and was a finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction.
4. ‘How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence,’ by Michael Pollan
Imagine if, as you lay dying, you could take a drug that would diminish your fear of death and whatever comes next. You’d probably take it. That’s just one concept Michael Pollan explores in How to Change Your Mind, a fascinating look at the history and uses of psychoactive compounds, including LSD and psilocybin (aka, magic mushrooms, which some medical experts believe contain a compound that could be used to treat depression). Pollan was never a drug user, but in middle age became intrigued by the possibility of becoming “more open,” so he started examining how some of these drugs could potentially be used to treat depression, anxiety, addiction, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Mental health treatment in this country is broken, writes Pollan, and pharmaceutical companies are increasingly less likely to invest in new antidepressants. Pollan interviewed researchers who believe there is a place for a kind of mental health club, where people experience psychedelics in a safe and supportive environment. One of the researchers Pollan interviewed is a psychiatrist who believes psychedelic therapy aims to treat people who are facing a chemical disorder, and loss of meaning in their lives. Maybe this all sounds kind of far out, but Pollan makes a compelling case for psychedelic therapy.
5. ‘Resilient: How to Grow an Unshakable Core of Calm, Strength, and Happiness,’ by Rick Hanson, PhD
According to Rick Hanson, PhD, a neuropsychologist and founder of the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley, the key to resilience is growing strengths like grit, gratitude, and compassion. His latest book, Resilient: How to Grow an Unshakable Core of Calm, Strength, and Happiness, aims to share practical methods that guide you in building resilience and lasting well-being. Hanson believes the brain is a muscle that can be changed for the better through regular stimulation and practice. He breaks down different ways you can exercise your brain, and helps you stockpile mental resources to draw on during difficult times. As Hanson says: “While resilience helps us recover from loss and trauma, it offers much more than that. True resilience fosters well-being, an underlying sense of happiness, love, and peace.”
6. ‘Beauty in the Broken Places: A Memoir of Love, Faith, and Resilience,’ by Allison Pataki
7. ‘The Art of Dying Well: A Practical Guide to a Good End of Life,’ by Katy Butler
The first section of the book focuses on health, the stage Butler refers to as “the resilience phase.” She provides a checklist that has everything from finding a medical advocate to advice on enrolling in an HMO (health maintenance organization). In the final chapters, she takes on more sensitive topics, such as how to handle the emotional task of passing, how to leave a good emotional legacy, and how to ensure a peaceful passing.
8. ‘Hardwiring Happiness: The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm, and Confidence,’ by Rick Hanson, PhD
In Hardwiring Happiness, Hanson lists four steps that can help foster contentment, and develop a powerful sense of resilience as your new normal. Practicing even just a few minutes each day can transform your brain into a center of calm and happiness, he says. Hanson’s personal experience with melanoma (which his brother-in-law was also diagnosed with and died from), offered an opportunity to change his thought patterns in the face of adversity. Instead of thinking, “Sunscreen is such a hassle. Will it even help?” he chose to feel “glad” — his diagnosis had made him more compassionate for people with illnesses, and gave him a new appreciation for life. Hanson’s bottom line? Finding positive meaning in negative events (otherwise known as “reframing”) is essential for coping and moving forward.
9. ‘Rising Strong: How the Ability to Reset Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead,’ by Brené Brown, PhD
Living a “brave” life, however, is not easy, and stumbling and falling is inevitable, she says. It’s rising and becoming resilient that allows us to move forward. During her more than 20 years as a university researcher, Brown has listened to CEOs, veterans and active duty military, teachers, and parents talk about falling down and getting back up. She realized they all had one thing in common: They weren’t afraid to lean into their discomfort, convincing Brown that a critical component of resilience is spirituality.
10. ‘Everything Is F*cked: A Book About Hope,’ by Mark Manson
This book examines the concept of resilience by looking at the roots of our collective unhappiness. “You build resilience through experiencing difficulty and challenges,” Mark Manson says. Materially speaking, humans are better off than ever: We’re more educated and literate, and extreme poverty is at an all-time low. And yet symptoms of depression and anxiety are on an 80-year upswing among young people. Their parents aren’t faring much better, either. So what can we do about it? In Everything is F*cked, Manson offers pragmatic, no-holds-barred advice about how to just “get over it” — the “it” being whatever is troubling you — by connecting with the world in ways you might not have considered. Manson writes about the problem of loneliness in America, and how the “social connective tissue in the country is being destroyed by the overabundance of diversions.” He says the only way to be free is through self-limitation, or in other words, figuring out what (or who) you can cut out of your life so you can focus your attention on the things that really matter to you.
11. ‘Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption,’ by Laura Hillenbrand
Unbroken is the outlier on this list. It’s not a self-help or how-to book, but rather the story of a man whose very life was a testimony to resilience. Unbroken tells the true story of Louis Zamperini, a young Army bombardier who in 1943 crashed into the Pacific Ocean and was then captured and held as a Japanese prisoner of war. He had already developed resilience growing up the child of poor immigrants in Los Angeles, where he was often in trouble for stealing, smoking, and drinking. To keep him out of trouble, his older brother got Zamperini involved with their high school track team. Zamperini went on to run in the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany, before enlisting in the Army. Zamperini was held for more than two years, during which he was starved and endured near-daily beatings at the hands of his guards. When he was finally released in 1945, Zamperini returned home, but suffered from PTSD and developed a drinking problem. He finally began to heal in 1949 after he heard a sermon by the evangelical preacher Billy Graham. He became a Christian, and even returned to Japan and met some of his former captors. Unbroken is one man’s story, but it is filled with lessons on how to live a fulfilling life, even following unspeakable horrors.
12. ‘Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela,’ by Nelson Mandela
It is impossible not to be moved and inspired by Nelson Mandela’s autobiography — Long Walk to Freedom personifies the concept of resilience. He spent more than 25 years in prison for alleged treason and sabotage, and when finally released, he chose to move forward with grace and forgiveness rather than bitterness. He is one of the most courageous political leaders in the modern era, and his fight against racial oppression in South Africa won him the Nobel Peace Prize and the presidency of his country. Mandela’s story is one of desperate struggle and setback, followed by hope and triumph.
