- We Are the Light
- Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World
- The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness
- B.F.F.: A Memoir of Friendship Lost and Found
- The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
- The Half Known Life: In Search of Paradise
- A Thread of Grace
By the staff at Covered Treasures
“Social connection is such a basic feature of human experience that when we are deprived of it, we suffer.”—Leonard Mlodinow
If we have learned anything these last few years, it’s the powerful need for human connection. These nonfiction and fiction books are noteworthy reads centering on this.
We Are the Light
By Matthew Quick (Avid Reader Press) $27.99
A widower takes in a grieving teenager and inspires a magical revival in Majestic, Penn., a small, quaint town torn apart by tragedy. Everyone sees Lucas as a hero, except Lucas. Insisting that his deceased wife visits him as an angel, Lucas spends his time writing letters to his former therapist. Then Lucas and Eli form an unlikely alliance, embarking on a journey to heal their neighbors and themselves. This unforgettable, optimistic tale reminds us that life is full of guardian angels.
Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World
By Vivek H. Murthy, MD (Harper) $29.99
Dr. Vivek Murthy’s message is about the importance of human connection, the hidden impact of loneliness, and the social power of community. He makes a case that loneliness affects not only our health but also how our children experience school, how we perform in the workplace, and the sense of division and polarization in our society. At the center is our innate desire to connect. We are, simply, better together.
The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness
By Robert Waldinger, MD and Marc Schultz, PhD (Simon & Schuster) $28.99
What makes a life fulfilling and meaningful? The stronger our relationships in all their forms—friendships, romantic partnerships, families, coworkers, book club members, Bible study groups—the more likely we are to live happy, satisfying, and healthier lives. The Harvard Study of Adult Development reveals that the strength of our connections with others can predict the health of our bodies and brains as we go through life. It’s never too late to strengthen current relationships and to build new ones.
B.F.F.: A Memoir of Friendship Lost and Found
By Christie Tate (Avid Reader Press) $28
A heartwarming memoir about Christie Tate’s lifelong struggle to sustain female friendship and the friend who helps her find the human connection she seeks. With Meredith, 20 years older, by her side, Christie embarks on a brutally honest exploration of her friendships past and present. B.F.F. explores what happens when we finally break the habits that impair our ability to connect with others, and the ways that one life can change another.
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
By Bessel Van Der Kolk, MD (Penguin) $19
Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, one of the world’s foremost experts on trauma, has spent over three decades working with survivors. He uses scientific advances to show how trauma literally reshapes both body and brain, compromising sufferers’ capacities for pleasure, engagement, self-control, and trust. He explores innovative treatments, exposes the tremendous power of our relationships to hurt and to heal, and offers new hope for reclaiming lives.
The Half Known Life: In Search of Paradise
By Pico Iyer (Riverhead Books) $26
Paradise: that elusive place where the anxieties, struggles, and burdens of life fall away. Pico Iyer brings together a lifetime of explorations to upend our ideas of utopia and how we might find peace amid difficulty and suffering. He brings together the outer world and the inner to offer us a surprising, original, often beautiful exploration of how we might come upon paradise amid our very real lives.
A Thread of Grace
By Mary Doria Russell (Ballantine) $17
It is 1943, and 14-year-old Claudette Blum and her father are among thousands of Jewish refugees scrambling over the Alps toward Italy. The Blums discover that Italy is anything but peaceful, as it quickly becomes an open battleground for the Nazis, the Allies, Resistance fighters, Jews in hiding, and ordinary Italian civilians trying to survive. It tells the little-known story of the vast underground effort by Italian citizens who saved the lives of 43,000 Jews during the final phase of World War II. Profoundly moving, it engages the value and depths of human connection.
Until next month, happy reading.
The staff at Covered Treasures can be reached at books@ocn.me.
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