In The Whole Foods Diet, authors John Mackey, Alona Pulde, MD, and Matthew Lederman, MD share what they believe to be the definitive guide to the optimum diet for health and wellness. John Mackey is co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods Market. And while he certainly mentions the company in this book, the grocery store is not front and center. Mackey admits that the food values of Whole Foods Market do not align perfectly with her personal food values, though he is still proud of the strides the company has made in pointing consumers toward healthier food. The purpose of the book is not to get readers to shop at Whole Foods; the purpose is to teach readers how to eat the healthiest diet, no matter where they shop.

We Are What We Eat is a slow food manifesto, a powerful picture of our prevalent culture around food and the many ways that we are missing out on all that food has to offer to our society. Waters explains the difference between fast food culture and slow food culture, and the values that make up each.

This simple habit is powerful, and Robbins is not short on evidence as to how. Robbins writes about the powerful effect this kind of self-celebration has on people, through stories from her community and her own family. Robbins gets personal, really personal, about the way she has used this tool in some of the most difficult times in her life.

Rebekah Lyons is quickly becoming one of my all-time favorite writers. Her first two books, Freefall to Fly and You are Free, chronicle Lyons’ journey through anxiety and panic to a place of peace and purpose. Both are honest and beautiful, and well worth the read, but there wasn’t a lot of guidance on actionable steps to develop a practice of peace.

The way of the Essentialist means living by design, not by default. Instead of making choices reactively, the Essentialist deliberately distinguishes the vital few from the trivial many, eliminates the nonessentials, and then removes obstacles so the essential things have clear, smooth passage. In other words, Essentialism is a disciplined, systematic approach for determining where our highest point of contribution lies, then making execution of those things almost effortless.

Atomic Habits by James Clear is a research-based, highly accessible guide to making and breaking habits. A wildly successful bestseller, this book had quite the tall order to fulfill my expectations for it. Not only did it meet my expectations; it exceeded them. Atomic Habits really is as good as everyone says it is. Atomic habits are the small, regular choices that compound to create sweeping results over a lifetime. Clear explains exactly how to create those habits.