Today the idea of wellness has been wrapped into 'self care' and the luxury lifestyle. But the movement grew out of radical ideas in the 1960s and 1970s, explains the Cambridge academic James Riley, whose new book presents a cultural history of alternative health. Here he recommends five of the best books on wellness—taking in both satirical novels and how-to guidebooks.

All of us are ultimately average, says author Eleanor Ross, and we should find that liberating rather than saddening. In this interview, she recommends five books across fiction and nonfiction that can help us understand and embrace our averageness.

From the classroom to the boardroom, everybody tries (and sometimes fails) to be liked and admired by others. In this interview, Övül Sezer—Assistant Professor of Management and Organizations at Cornell University—recommends five books that can help you make a good impression on everybody, including yourself.

Good decision-making is a crucial skill not only in business but in life. In this interview, entrepreneur, investor and poker player Sebastian Park advises how to make good decisions in a world of uncertainty, how to evaluate past decisions for future improvement, and how fiction can help us reflect on the choices we make.

At the turn of the year, many of us take the opportunity to think about our lives—how they are going, and how we hope to live them in future. We asked Avram Alpert, author of The Good-Enough Life, to recommend five of the best self-help books of 2022 that might help our bids for self-improvement; his choices remind us that self-help is not only about life-hacks and diets, but about bringing the world more in line with our ideals.

Lockdowns have forced many of us to pause and consider the way we are living our lives, says the podcaster and bestselling author Emma Gannon. Here she highlights five of the best self help books published in 2021, with a special focus on creativity and setting better boundaries to safeguard our time and energy.

Feeling stressed and overwhelmed? You are not alone. Oliver Burkeman, author of Four Thousand Weeks, selects some of the best books on time management—including two classic how-to guides, plus several texts focused on helping you decide how you really want to spend your finite time on this planet.

Feeling anxiety is a natural part of being a human being, but for some people it can cause terrible mental and physical anguish and prevents them from leading happy and fulfilling lives. Lucy Foulkes, a psychologist at University College London, talks us through books that can help with anxiety.

We asked Oliver Burkeman, the Guardian writer and author of The Antidote, to select the best self help books published in 2020. His recommended titles include spiritual guidance for the age of doomscrolling, a philosophy of failure, and practical advice for those working from home for the first time.

If you feel like you lose whole days to procrastination or indecision—or simply have too much to do!—you probably want advice on how improve your productivity. We spoke to David Allen, creator of the perennial bestseller Getting Things Done, about the best books on the subject: why we waste time, and what we can change to be more productive.