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Despite being dyslexic, I love a good book. I love books that teach me something, books that challenge me, books that make me feel something unexpected sitting in the laundromat waiting for laundry to dry, and books that leave me staring blankly off into the distance wondering how a stranger manage to capture something I have felt my entire life but didn’t have words for.

This offering of books are ones that have been supportive in my own growth and books that I frequently recommend to clients. They are everything from workbooks packed with tools and prompts, to novels and books of poetry. Some focus on specific topics related to mental health, trauma , relationships, identity, grief and healing. Others focus on contemplative practices, mediation and mindfulness practice. And some offer something a little harder to define, the experience of feeling seen, understood, connected or expanded by a story or another’s lived or imagined experience.

One of the reasons I adore reading is that books and stories can remind us we are not the first person to struggle with what we're struggling with. Through stories and shared wisdom, we can find language for our experiences, discover new possibilities, and feel a little less alone in the amazingly awful, messy project of being human. This is one of the foundations of bibliotherapy and narrative therapy, the idea that healing can happen through encountering ideas, stories, and perspectives that help us make meaning of our own lives.

Insight is not the same thing as healing. I know, what a terrible thing to say.

“You mean I CAN’T learn my way out of my suffering?”

Books can offer wisdom, but they cannot feel your feelings for you. They cannot grieve, rest, rage, risk, connect, set boundaries, or have hard conversations on your behalf.

My caution here is that , sometimes, reading can become another way to stay in our heads, gathering more information, highlighting more passages, buying another self-help book because surely this one contains the secret. If this is you, i encourage you to take a breath and notice what you might be avoiding, or at lease move forward knowing the choice your are making.

I invite you to approach these recommendations with curiosity rather than self-improvement, fix it pressure. Read what draws you in. Put down what doesn't. Let a book accompany you rather than become another thing to achieve. Take what is useful, leave what isn't, and remember that the most important relationship in this process is not the one you have with the book, it's the one you have with yourself.

May these books offer insight, comfort, challenge, companionship, and the occasional well-timed existential crisis.