Recommended Books from Molly Patrick
I read a lot of books. Some are good, some are great, and some hit you in all the right spots and you can't put them down. Below are books that I have thoroughly loved reading. I will continue to add books to this page as they captivate my soul and shoot kisses down my spine.
HELP WITH LIFE
Michael Singer
Untethered Soul
What would it be like to free yourself from limitations and soar beyond your boundaries? What can you do each day to discover inner peace and serenity? The Untethered Soul offers simple yet profound answers to these questions.
Pema Chodron
When Things Fall Apart
How can we live our lives when everything seems to fall apart—when we are continually overcome by fear, anxiety, and pain? Here, in her most beloved and acclaimed work, Pema shows that moving toward painful situations and becoming intimate with them can open up our hearts in ways we never before imagined.
Thich Nhat Hanh
You Are Here
Renowned Zen monk, author, and meditation master, distills the essence of Buddhist thought and practice, emphasizing the power of mindfulness to transform our lives. “Mindfulness is not an evasion or an escape,” he explains. “It means being here, present, and totally alive. It is true freedom—and without this freedom, there is no happiness.”
Lodro RInzler
Love Hurts
Buddhism has a lot to say about suffering--and there are likely few times we suffer more intensely than when we break up with a romantic partner. It feels like you may never recover sometimes. Lodro Rinzler has wonderfully good news for those suffering heartbreak: the 2,500-year-old teachings of the Buddha are the ultimate antidote for emotional pain. And you don't need to be a Buddhist for them to apply to you.
Don Miguel Ruiz
The Four Agreements
Bestselling author Don Miguel Ruiz reveals the source of self-limiting beliefs that rob us of joy and create needless suffering. Based on ancient Toltec wisdom, The Four Agreements offer a powerful code of conduct that can rapidly transform our lives to a new experience of freedom, true happiness, and love.
Anne Lamott
Almost Everything
In this profound and funny book, Lamott calls for each of us to rediscover the nuggets of hope and wisdom that are buried within us that can make life sweeter than we ever imagined. Divided into short chapters that explore life's essential truths, Almost Everything pinpoints these moments of insight as it shines an encouraging light forward.
Peme Chodron
Taking The Leap
Best-seller Pema Chödrön draws on the Buddhist concept of shenpa to help us see how certain habits of mind tend to "hook" us and get us stuck in states of anger, blame, self-hatred, and addiction. The good news is that once we start to recognize these patterns, they instantly begin to lose their hold on us and we can begin to change our lives for the better.
NON-FICTION
Elizabeth Gilbert
Big Magic
Readers of all ages and walks of life have drawn inspiration and empowerment from Elizabeth Gilbert’s books for years. Now this beloved author digs deep into her own generative process to share her wisdom and unique perspective about creativity. With profound empathy and radiant generosity, she offers potent insights into the mysterious nature of inspiration.
Jill Bolte Taylor Ph.D
My Stroke of Insight
On the morning of December 10, 1996 Jill Bolte Taylor, a 37-year-old Harvard-trained brain scientist experienced a massive stroke when a blood vessel exploded in the left side of her brain. A neuroanatomist by profession, she observed her own mind completely deteriorate to the point that she could not walk, talk, read, write, or recall any of her life, all within the space of four brief hours.
Elizabeth Lesser
Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • This inspiring guide to healing and growth illuminates the richness and potential of every life, even in the face of loss and adversity—now updated with additional toolbox materials and a new preface by the author. In the more than twenty-five years since she co-founded Omega Institute—now the world’s largest center for spiritual retreat and personal growth—Elizabeth Lesser has been an intimate witness to the ways in which people weather change and transition.
Marc Maron
Attempting Normal
Marc Maron is “a master of spinning humor out of anguish” (Bookforum), even when that anguish is pretty clearly self-inflicted. In Attempting Normal, he threads together twenty-five stories from his life and near-death, from his first comedy road trips (with a fugitive junkie comic with a missing tooth) to his love affair with feral animals (his cat rescues are bloody epics) to his surprisingly moving tales of lust, heartbreak, and hope.
Various Storytellers
The Moth - All These Wonders
Celebrating the 20th anniversary of storytelling phenomenon The Moth, 45 unforgettable true stories about risk, courage, and facing the unknown, drawn from the best ever told on their stages. Carefully selected by the creative minds at The Moth, and adapted to the page to preserve the raw energy of live storytelling
Edith Eger
The Gift
A practical and inspirational guide to stopping destructive patterns and imprisoning thoughts to find freedom and joy in life—now updated to address the challenges of the pandemic and a world in crisis. World renowned psychologist and internationally bestselling author Edith Eger’s powerful New York Times bestselling book The Choice told the story of her survival in the concentration camps, her escape, healing, and journey to freedom.
Kelly Corrigan
Tell Me More
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A story-driven collection of essays on the twelve powerful phrases we use to sustain our relationships, from the bestselling author of Glitter and Glue and The Middle Place. It’s a crazy idea: trying to name the phrases that make love and connection possible. But that’s just what Kelly Corrigan has set out to do here.
Cheryl Strayed
Wild
At twenty-two, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. In the wake of her mother’s death, her family scattered and her own marriage was soon destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she made the most impulsive decision of her life. With no experience or training, driven only by blind will, she would hike more than a thousand miles of the Pacific Crest Trail. Alone.
Viola Davis
Finding Me
In my book, you will meet a little girl named Viola who ran from her past until she made a life-changing decision to stop running forever. This is my story, from a crumbling apartment in Central Falls, Rhode Island, to the stage in New York City, and beyond. This is the path I took to finding my purpose but also my voice in a world that didn't always see me.
NON-FICTION - Sobriety
Caroline Knapp
Drinking: A Love Story
Fifteen million Americans a year are plagued with alcoholism. Five million of them are women. Many of them, like Caroline Knapp, started in their early teens and began to use alcohol as "liquid armor," a way to protect themselves against the difficult realities of life. In this extraordinarily candid and revealing memoir, Knapp offers important insights not only about alcoholism, but about life itself and how we learn to cope with it.
Sacha Z. Scoblic
Unwasted: My Lush Sobriety
When Sacha Z. Scoblic was drinking, she was a rock star; the days were rough and the nights filled with laughter and blackouts. Then she gave it up. She had to. Here are her adventures in an utterly and maddeningly sober world. . .and how she discovered that nothing is as odd and fantastic as life without a drink in hand. . .
PLANT BASED NUTRITION
Dr Neal Barnard
The Cheese Trap
New York Times bestselling author Dr. Neal Barnard reveals the shocking truth about cheese-the dangerous addiction that is harming your health-and presents a radical program to lose weight and feel great. We've been told that dairy does a body good, but the truth is that cheese can be dangerous. Loaded with calories, fat, and cholesterol, cheese can make you gain weight and leads to a host of health problems like high blood pressure and arthritis.
Dr Michael Greger
How Not To Die
Internationally-renowned nutrition expert, physician, and founder of NutritionFacts.org, examines the fifteen top causes of premature death in America--heart disease, various cancers, diabetes, Parkinson's, high blood pressure, and more--and explains how nutritional and lifestyle interventions can sometimes trump prescription pills and other pharmaceutical and surgical approaches to help prevent and reverse these diseases, freeing us to live healthier lives.
Douglas J. Lisle, Ph.D.
The Pleasure Trap
A wake-up call to even the most health conscious Americans, this book challenges conventional wisdom about sickness and unhappiness in today's contemporary culture and offers ground-breaking solutions for achieving change. Inspired original research, comprehensive clinical studies, and their successes with thousands of patients, the authors construct a new paradigm for the psychology of health that offers fresh hope for anyone stuck in a self-destructive cycle.
Dr Neal Barnard
Your Body In Balance
This nationally bestselling book explains the shocking new science of how hormones are wreaking havoc on the body, and the delicious solution that improves health, reduces pain, and even helps to shed weight. Hidden in everyday foods are the causes of a surprising range of health problems: infertility, menstrual cramps, weight gain, hair loss, breast and prostate cancer, hot flushes, and much more. All of these conditions have one thing in common: they are fueled by hormones that are hiding in foods or are influenced by the foods we eat.
Dr Joel Fuhrman
Super Immunity
Dr. Fuhrman doesn’t believe the secret to staying healthy lies in medical care—rather, the solution is to change the way we eat. With more than 85 plant-based recipes, a two-week menu plan, and lists of super foods that boost immunity, Dr. Fuhrman’s proven strategies combine the latest data from clinical tests, nutritional research, and results from thousands of patients .
Dr Garth Davis
Proteinaholic
Too much protein is actually making us sick, fat, and tired, according to Dr. Davis. If you are getting adequate calories in your diet, there is no such thing as protein deficiency. The healthiest countries in the world eat far less protein than we do and yet we have an entire nation on a protein binge getting sicker by the day. As a surgeon treating obese patients, Dr. Davis was frustrated by the ever-increasing number of sick and overweight patients, but it wasn't until his own health scare that he realized he could do something about it.
Virginia Messina
Vegan For Her
A blueprint for optimal health and wellness at any age, will show you how to: lower your risk for breast cancer and heart disease; manage conditions like arthritis and migraines; diminish PMs and cramps; build strong bones for life; enhance fertility; make an easy transition to a vegan diet; and incorporate principles of both fashion and compassion into your home and wardrobe.
FICTION
Fredrik Backman
My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry
Elsa is seven years old and different. Her grandmother is seventy-seven years old and crazy—as in standing-on-the-balcony-firing-paintball-guns-at-strangers crazy. She is also Elsa’s best, and only, friend. At night Elsa takes refuge in her grandmother’s stories, in the Land-of-Almost-Awake and the Kingdom of Miamas, where everybody is different and nobody needs to be normal.
Fredrik Backman
A Man Called Ove
Meet Ove. He’s a curmudgeon—the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse. People call him “the bitter neighbor from hell.” But must Ove be bitter just because he doesn’t walk around with a smile plastered to his face all the time? Behind the cranky exterior there is a story and a sadness.
Fredrik Backman
Britt-Marie Was Here
Britt-Marie can’t stand mess. A disorganized cutlery drawer ranks high on her list of unforgivable sins. She is not one to judge others—no matter how ill-mannered, unkempt, or morally suspect they might be. It’s just that sometimes people interpret her helpful suggestions as criticisms, which is certainly not her intention. But hidden inside the socially awkward, fussy busybody is a woman who has more imagination, bigger dreams, and a warmer heart that anyone around her realizes.
Fredrik Backman
Anxious People
An instant number 1 New York Times bestseller and touching new comedy from the author of multi-million copy bestseller A Man Called Ove. In a small town in Sweden it appears to be an ordinary day. But look more closely, and you'll see a masked figure approaching a bank. Two hours later, chaos has descended. An attempted robbery has developed into a hostage situation - with the offender refusing to voice their demands.
Elizabeth Gilbert
City Of Girls
Beloved author Elizabeth Gilbert returns to fiction with a unique love story set in the New York City theater world during the 1940s. Told from the perspective of an older woman as she looks back on her youth with both pleasure and regret (but mostly pleasure), City of Girls explores themes of female sexuality and promiscuity, as well as the idiosyncrasies of true love.
Kevin Wilson
Nothing To See Here
Lillian and Madison were unlikely roommates and yet inseparable friends at their elite boarding school. Then Lillian had to leave the school unexpectedly in the wake of a scandal and they’ve barely spoken since. Until now, when Lillian gets a letter from Madison pleading for her help.
Robin Sloan
Sour Dough
Leavened by infectious intelligence and lovable nerdiness, Sourdough will leave you quite literally hungry for more.