“what saves is the willingness to learn from what you don’t know”1

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.”2

“One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.”3


Self-help books often contain lots of psychology, therefore I’ve combined the two topics.

Non-Fiction

12 Rules for Life

  • Jordan Peterson’s self-help book that contains 12 rules everyone should follow

Blink

  • centered around the idea of ‘thin-slicing’ or the adaptive unconscious

Modern Man in Search of a Soul

  • a blend of psychology and philosophy (it’s Jung, afterall)

Meditations

  • stoicism

Outliers

  • a thorough study of success and the factors that contribute to it

The 48 Laws of Power

  • 48 laws that will help you advance in all aspects of life

The Courage to be Happy

  • self-help based on Adlerian psychology, book #1

The Courage to be Disliked

  • self-help based on Adlerian psychology, book #2

The Origins and History of Consciousness

  • a study of myth and symbols based on Jungian concepts (the author was a student of Jung)

The Subtle Art of Not Giving A Fuck

  • learn how to care less

The Way of the Superior Man

  • learn how to become a masculine man from a more spiritual perspective

Fiction

The following fiction books have psychology as a major theme:

Alamut

Anna Karenina

Crime and Punishment

Notes from Underground

The Death of Ivan Ilych

The Devil

The Gambler

The Kreutzer Sonata

The Midnight Library

Footnotes

  1. 12 Rules for Life

  2. The Courage to be Disliked

  3. The Subtle Art of Not Giving