“Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I fail, but every day is a clean slate and a fresh opportunity.”
We love a book that can deliver a gut-wrenching punch here at What We Reading. But even we can find ourselves looking for a read that helps us remember the good sides to life. Whether we’re feeling lost in our own lives or keen to rekindle the beauty of the world, books can ooze warmth, comfort and, above all, hope for the future. We’ve pulled together the best non-fiction hopeful books to de-stress with and be inspired by.
For Small Creatures Such As We: Rituals for Finding Meaning In Our Unlikely World – Sasha Sagan
Kicking off our list of the best hopeful books is Sasha Sagan’s For Small Creatures Such As We. The daughter of Carl Sagan, this non-fiction book is a beautifully-told exploration into the joys of existence and is the perfect read for when you’re feeling lost in the world.
Part memoir, part historical record and part social commentary, Sagan explains how beauty and meaning can be found across the natural world. She also introduces a number of rituals that readers can utilise to find our own sense of meaning and rekindle our relationships with the world around us.
The Happiness Project – Gretchen Rubin
Gretchen Rubin inspires readers with a year-long personal experiment to increase her own happiness in The Happiness Project. Over the course of twelve months, Rubin’s happiness project cultivated timeless pieces of wisdom with modern science, and her discoveries included everything from how money can buy happiness when spent correctly, how novelty and challenges are powerful tools for happiness and how the smallest of changes can have the biggest impacts.
Hopeful as well as practical, The Happiness Project offers readers achievable steps to improve their emotional well-being.
Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, And Finding Joy – Sheryl Sandberg And Adam Grant
Nominated for Best Nonfiction in the Goodreads Choice Awards, Sheryl Sandberg offers her own account of grief, resilience and hope in Option B. After the sudden loss of her husband, Sandberg was convinced that she would never find joy in her life again.
Beginning from this gut-wrenching moment, she opens her journal to readers to follow as she discovers how resilience is a muscle that can be trained and built, and how combined with the support of the communities around us, can be utilised to help us move forward after life’s inevitable setbacks. A timeless guide to coping with loss and finding joy, Option B remains one of the most timeless hopeful books available.
Educated – Tara Westover
Another hopeful book that explores the power of resilience and finding joy in the transformations it can bring comes from Tara Westover in Educated. Having grown isolated and abused in rural Idaho, Westover chronicles the first time she ever stepped foot in a classroom.
This powerful memoir follows Westover on her journey of self-discovery, and the pains of severing the closest of emotional ties. Demonstrating the power of education and learning, it is a coming-of-age tale that any reader will be inspired by.
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Things To Look Forward To: 52 Large And Small Joys For Today And Every Day – Sophie Blackall
Having something to look forward to is arguably the biggest source of hope we all rely on. In Things to Look Forward To, two-time Caldecott Award-winning author and illustrator Sophie Blackall curates the best bits of everyday magic that will inspire joy.
For those who actively go out and find hope as well as those who let it come to them naturally, Things to Look Forward To comes with 52 beautifully illustrated ideas that capture all the wisdom and whimsy Blackall has become so renowned for.
The Boy Who Harnessed The Wind: Creating Currents Of Electricity And Hope – William Kamkwamba And Bryan Mealer
William Kamkwamba was born in Malawi, a place where superstition and magic ruled and modern science was practically unheard of. Also a land of intense famine and drought, it was not a place known for hope.
Yet, on the back of reading a book called Using Energy and his own resilience and imagination, Kamkwamba embarked on a project that would provide his family with electricity and running water. Using little more than scrap bits of metal, this incredible story of the unlikeliest of contraptions is a hopeful book that demonstrates the potential one individual can have.
Becoming Wise: An Inquiry Into The Mystery And Art Of Living – Krista Tippett
Krista Tippett is renowned for her podcast, On Being, and she imparts all of her life-affirming knowledge and energy in her hopeful book, Becoming Wise.
Distilling all of the most important stories and lessons she has learned from a lifetime of listening to people, Becoming Wise is designed to arm readers with the strength to go out and face the world, and contribute to making it a better place. Tippett explores how our wounds bring us meaning, beauty and wisdom, as well as the enduring capacity for kindness all humans have.
Check Out The Best Books Like A Man Called Ove
Part-time reader, part-time rambler, and full-time Horror enthusiast, James has been writing for What We Reading since 2022. His earliest reading memories involved Historical Fiction, Fantasy and Horror tales, which he has continued to take with him to this day. James’ favourite books include The Last (Hanna Jameson), The Troop (Nick Cutter) and Chasing The Boogeyman (Richard Chizmar).
