From habits that boost joy to insights that shift perspective, these 14 books on happiness show that feeling good isn’t luck—it’s a practice.
How to Be Enough: Self-Acceptance for Self-Critics and Perfectionists
By Ellen Hendriksen
Our demanding culture is silently fueling an epidemic of unhealthy perfectionism. Many people who look like they’re hitting it out of the park feel like they are striking out. Fortunately, through practices of self-acceptance, all of us with perfectionism can keep our standards high without losing our personal sense of worth. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Ellen Hendriksen, in the Next Big Idea App or view on Amazon.
The Bright Side: How Optimists Change the World, and How You Can Be One
By Sumit Paul-Choudhury
Despite evidence suggesting that the default state of humans individually is optimism for their own lives, collectively we tend to veer toward pessimism. The greatest chance our species has at overcoming global problems is by expanding our positive assumptions to the big picture. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Sumit Paul-Choudhury, in the Next Big Idea App or view on Amazon.
Beyond Anxiety: Curiosity, Creativity, and Finding Your Life’s Purpose
By Martha Beck
There are practical methods for halting the upward spiral of anxious panic, as well as long-term mindset shifts that replace damaging thought patterns with joy and bliss. Learning to live in a perpetual creative response to the present moment is a natural, lasting remedy for anxiety. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Martha Beck, in the Next Big Idea App or view on Amazon.
How to Make Your Brain Your Best Friend: A Neuroscientist’s Guide to a Healthier, Happier Life
By Rachel Barr
By understanding—and befriending—your brain, you can fine-tune how to treat it right and walk through life feeling your best. You can’t load it with negative self-talk, viral clips of enraged people, and more tasks than it’s designed to handle at one time and then expect it to function healthily or happily. Ease and delight become daily norms when your brain becomes your bestie. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Rachel Barr, in the Next Big Idea App or view on Amazon.
Start Making Sense: How Existential Psychology Can Help Us Build Meaningful Lives in Absurd Times
By Steven Heine
A lot of people right now feel lost, anxious, and despaired. During these dark times, preserving a sense of meaning in our lives is vital. Fortunately, meaning can be cultivated and ground us when life feels turbulent. The emerging field of existential psychology is refining practices for tuning in to the worth, purpose, and importance of your life. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Steven Heine, in the Next Big Idea App or view on Amazon.
The Ambition Trap: How to Stop Chasing and Start Living
By Amina AlTai
Ambition itself is not a dirty word—we can renegotiate unhealthy assumptions about ambition to engage with it in meaningful and restorative ways. To escape the trap of an endless cycle of overwork that is never enough, ambition must be anchored in our purpose rather than our pain. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Amina AlTai, in the Next Big Idea App or view on Amazon.
Raising Calm Kids in a World of Worry: Tools to Ease Anxiety and Overwhelm
By Ashley Graber & Maria Evans
Children need their parents to help them learn how to regulate their toughest emotions. Caregivers can use the five-step SAFER framework to create emotional safety, build their children’s self-esteem, and guide better behaviors instead. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by c0-authors Ashley Graber and Maria Evans, in the Next Big Idea App or view on Amazon.
How to Stop Trying: An Overachiever’s Guide to Self-Acceptance, Letting Go, and Other Impossible Things
By Kate Williams
Women live in a world of twisted ironies that all conspire to encourage self-deprecation and overwork. High achievers are told to put in effort beyond reason and never get too comfortable with themselves, but this is not the recipe for a dream life. Amazing women everywhere need to be reminded that self-acceptance is not settling. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Kate Williams, in the Next Big Idea App or view on Amazon.
Tiny Experiments: How to Live Freely in a Goal-Obsessed World
By Anne-Laure Le Cunff
Neuroscientist and entrepreneur Anne-Laure Le Cunff reveals how an experimental mindset can transform doubt into opportunity, helping us break free from invisible cognitive scripts and outdated beliefs about success. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Anne-Laure Le Cunff, in the Next Big Idea App or view on Amazon.
How to Love Better: The Path to Deeper Connection Through Growth, Kindness, and Compassion
By Yung Pueblo
Until we attend to our inner baggage, our personal and relational well-being will suffer from the pressure of our repressed struggles. Through personal growth and healing, we can create new harmony in our most important bonds. In this way, caring for your own inner peace will result in a greater gift of love for the people you care about most. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Yung Pueblo, in the Next Big Idea App or view on Amazon.
The Outward Path: The Wisdom of the Aztecs
By Sebastian Purcell
While traditions like Buddhism and Stoicism teach you to go inward—to still your mind through meditation and journaling—the Aztecs taught the opposite. Your mind, they believed, is easier to steady if you start with your surroundings: your environment, your habits, your relationships. You take the outward path. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Sebastian Purcell, in the Next Big Idea App or view on Amazon.
Joyspan: The Art and Science of Thriving in Life’s Second Half
By Kerry Burnight
There exist radical differences in how people experience their longevity. For some, it is a frustrating, degrading, painful trajectory of ever-increasing decline. For others, there is visible delight, spirituality, and joy in occupying their eighth, ninth, and tenth decades. Lifespan and healthspan don’t mean much without joyspan. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Kerry Burnight, in the Next Big Idea App or view on Amazon.
The Happiness Files: Insights on Work and Life
By Arthur C. Brooks
Happiness is really all about the business of life. Your life is like a startup business, and you should manage it as such. You’re the founder, and you need to be able to take risks and know what the currency is of the fortune you’re trying to accumulate. The Happiness Files shows how to become more successful in getting what you truly want by seeing your life in this way. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Arthur C. Brooks, in the Next Big Idea App or view on Amazon.
Resurface: A Guide to Navigating Life’s Biggest Transitions
By Cassidy Krug
Former Olympic diver Cassidy Krug spoke with hundreds of people navigating massive transitions and shares the lessons she discovered for experiencing change with less pain, and more joy. Listen to our Book Bite summary, read by author Cassidy Krug, in the Next Big Idea App or view on Amazon.
The Key Ideas in 15 Minutes
“If you are going to get anywhere in life, you have to read a lot of books,” Roald Dahl once famously said. The only trouble is, reading even one book from cover to cover takes hours—and you may not have many hours to spare.
But imagine for a moment: What if you could read a groundbreaking new book every day? Or even better, what if you could invite a world-renowned thinker into your earbuds, where they personally describe the 5 key takeaways from their work in just 15 minutes?
With the Next Big Idea App, we’ve turned this fantasy into a reality. We partnered with hundreds of acclaimed authors to create “Book Bites,” short audio summaries of the latest nonfiction that are prepared and read aloud by the authors themselves. Discover cutting-edge leadership skills, productivity hacks, the science of happiness and well-being, and much more—all in the time it takes to drive to work or walk the dog.
Go Deeper with a Next Big Idea Club Membership
The Next Big Idea App is free for anyone to try—and if you love it, we invite you to become an official member of the Next Big Idea Club. Membership grants you unlimited access to Book Bites and unlocks early-release, ad-free episodes of our LinkedIn-partnered podcast. You also gain entry to our private online discussion group, where you can talk big ideas with fellow club members and join exclusive live Q&A sessions with featured authors.
For a more focused learning experience, we recommend a Hardcover or eBook Membership. Every few months, legendary authors and club curators Malcolm Gladwell, Susan Cain, Adam Grant, and Daniel Pink select two new nonfiction books as the must-reads of the season. We then send hardcover copies straight to your doorstep, or eBook versions to your favorite digital device. We also collaborate with the authors of selected books to produce original reading guides and premium e-courses, 50-minute master classes that take you step by step through their most life-changing ideas. And yes, it’s all available through the Next Big Idea App.
Learn Faster, from the World’s Leading Thinkers
Whether you prefer to read, listen, or watch, the Next Big Idea is here to help you work smarter and live better. Wake up with an always-fresh Idea of the Day, the perfect shot of inspiration to go with your morning coffee. Then dive into one of our Challenges, hand-picked collections of Book Bites that form crash courses in subjects like communication, motivation, and career acceleration. Later, watch the playback of an interview with U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, Stanford psychologist Jennifer Eberhardt, or philosopher John Kaag. And be sure to check the “Events” tab in the app, so that you can join an upcoming live Q&A and personally chat with the next featured thought leader.
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