Habiba ElGaniny Books can be life-changing, nothing feels better than feeling the pages beneath your fingertips. Reading the words, pausing, then closing the book and just taking a couple of seconds to rethink an inescapable situation,a relentless feeling or even imagine the life ahead of you. That has to be the epitome of life to read, feel, think and act.
I believe in the power of a good book. Not just the ones that entirely change your mood but also help you establish a healthy routine where you read every day and stay away from your screens.
Reading has lately been dismissed. So, think of this as your wake-up call to bring back those elegant, opulent aesthetics that come along with books. Seeing people reading in cafés, public transportation, the beach, or even airports gives off that tranquil essence we all long for. So let me open that gate for you and help you find the next book worth having in your purse, and I bet you’ll be coming back wondering how few pages can be that eloquent and relatable.
1-The Art Of Letting Go
The book was published by Thought Catalog Books . Unlike traditional self-help books, this one is a collaborative project that gathers quotes, short stories, and poems from different authors and puts them in one book.
That’s what makes it so peculiar, you’re not just reading a book from a one-person perspective, navigating through the pages, you get to encounter more than one viewpoint that’ll feel like your backbone when you feel fragile, like an older sister when needed, and most importantly it’ll show you that whatever you’re going through right now it’s temporary.
The storm will pass, you just have to gather your power and get through it. It feels like it opens a small portal in your head and the pain in your chest, if it exists, somehow lifts and you can breathe easier. It’s the kind of book you’ll need a highlighter for.
2- The Power Of Your Subconscious Mind
It’s Dr. Joseph Murphy’s masterpiece. While navigating the book the biggest obstacle you’ll encounter is to not pause after each paragraph. With each paragraph, you feel like, my goodness, is that actually true? And then things start to fall into place and those puzzle pieces in your head interlock.
It tells you how you should work alongside your subconscious mind, not the other way around. Basically it’s the one thing that can control your life and by ignoring such a connection you’ll just be choosing to work against yourself. Understanding how that works can give you the ultimate advantage and you get to change not just your current self but also you’ll be offering your future self a silver platter.
The book also introduces you to real-life case studies, parables, and psychological examples to show how thoughts shape our reality. As well as embodying the mind as garden soil accepting any seed and growing it faithfully whether it’s good or bad.
3- The Forty Rules Of Love
It’s a novel by the Turkish author Elif Shafak, where she fascinates us by following two parallels. It’s the kind of book that makes it so hard for us to put down, resist sleep, reach for another cup of coffee, smile, stress and feel it all in.
Elif blurs the line between two timelines: one chapter, we are in the 13th century and very deeply impressed with Shams’ captivating character, waiting impatiently to see where he’ll stir up the events. In the other chapter we’re back to our Ella and her unhappy marriage alongside her 21st century challenges. Whenever you open the book you get a welcoming invitation to both parallels and where you get to enjoy both.
The book provokes us to rethink our choices: if we’re unhappy, why settle? Why not change? Why choose to survive when we can choose to live? And why ignore what is so obvious to our heart and mind that it’s our fate just because we’re on autopilot?
4- The Mountain Is You
It’s Brianna Wiest’s profound guide. The book gently explains how our bad habits aren’t signs of weakness, they’re our inner struggles acting as defense mechanisms preventing us from changing, from crossing to the other side.
Brianna has this way that can make you feel like you’re chatting with a faithful friend over coffee. It doesn’t quite feel like reading a text, it feels more like genuine communication, a warm hug needed after a heartbreak.
In her book Brianna teaches you that your new life doesn’t come easily, it’ll cost you your old one, your comfort zone, your sense of direction and friends but also how all of that doesn’t really matter, don’t look confused—it doesn’t. And there’s a comfort in that. People who are meant to be in your life will meet you on the other side where you’ll be loved instead of liked, you’ll be seen instead of merely understood. There’s a fresh breeze coming with new starts. Why panic from starting over when we can romanticize it and be thrilled about it?
The only thing that stops you from being everything you want to be is you.
5-Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life
By Héctor García and Francesc Miralles. We all know how the Japanese have their own way of living life, so the book saves us time and effort and introduces us to the Okinawan philosophy of finding one’s reason for being to achieve health and longevity.
It captures lessons and stories from centenarians who live tranquil, joyful and fulfilled lives in which they never really retire. It introduces us to ten life-changing principles. It’s the kind of book that makes sense. It gives you rules supported with evidence from people who tried it before. Its tone mixes between theoretical and narrative where it feeds both your explorer side with that hunger for knowledge and your reader soul that enjoys ideas and anecdotes .
It’s the kind of book that will make you think, then rethink again. Maybe it will leave you with useful rituals like journaling, dancing, or getting over a mental fear that was holding you back and maybe it’ll leave you with a lavish journey to find your life purpose, to start looking for a reason that makes you excited to wake up in the morning.
