Books by Oliver Burkeman
Oliver Burkeman is the author of The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can’t Stand Positive Thinking (2012) and Help! How to Become Slightly Happier and Get a Bit More Done (2011). His latest book, Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals (2021), is about making the most of our radically finite lives in a world of impossible demands and relentless distraction. You can subscribe to his twice-monthly email, The Imperfectionist, at oliverburkeman.com.
“Meditation for Mortals, again asks us to—respectfully—get a grip, to accept where we are in our lives rather than living in a fantasy land, and to understand that there will never be a golden day when we finally ‘get on top of things’ and live correctly. He calls on us to reflect on ‘the liberation of defeat’ and ‘the futility of becoming a better person.’ If that sounds gloomy, maybe it’s not the right book for you, but if you are anything like me—that is, an all-or-nothing kind of person who strives for perfection and then jacks it all in when they inevitably fall short—then it might just be the book that will change your life.” Read more...
Notable Self-Help & Psychology Books of 2024
Cal Flyn, Five Books Editor
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals
by Oliver Burkeman
***🏆 A Five Books Book of the Year ***
“It’s a book about what we do with our limited time on Earth, how we decide to prioritise and proportion our time. To that extent it’s a book of ethics in the face of inevitable death. It’s a combination of sometimes witty, sometimes terrifying exploration of the human condition, and at the same time an antidote to those time management books that tell you how you can maximise your productivity, taking on more and more tasks and completing them efficiently.” Read more...
The Best Philosophy Books of 2021
Nigel Warburton, Philosopher
“He describes Stoicism, the philosophy of accepting current reality so that you can move past it. That is such a key, key element. It’s a real key element of getting things done, in a way, because a lot of people resist what I teach because they don’t want to look at all the commitments that they’ve made, face up to it.” Read more...
The best books on Productivity
David Allen, Entrepreneurs & Business People
Interviews with Oliver Burkeman
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1
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
by David Allen -
2
Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World
by Cal Newport -
3
The Tao of Time
by Diana Hunt & Pam Hait -
4
Drop the Ball: Achieving More by Doing Less
by Tiffany Dufu -
5
Finding Meaning in an Imperfect World
by Iddo Landau
The best books on Time Management, recommended by Oliver Burkeman
The best books on Time Management, recommended by Oliver Burkeman
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.
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1
The Wisdom Pattern: Order, Disorder, Reorder
by Richard Rohr -
2
Spiritual Practice for Crazy Times: Powerful Tools to Cultivate Calm, Clarity, and Courage
by Philip Goldberg -
3
How to Be a Failure and Still Live Well: A Philosophy
by Beverley Clack -
4
The Passion Economy: The New Rules for Thriving in the Twenty-First Century
by Adam Davidson -
5
The New Corner Office: How the Most Successful People Work From Home
The Best Self Help Books of 2020, recommended by Oliver Burkeman
The Best Self Help Books of 2020, recommended by Oliver Burkeman
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.
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1
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed
by Lori Gottlieb -
2
Seculosity: How Career, Parenting, Technology, Food, Politics, and Romance Became Our New Religion and What to Do about It
by David Zahl -
3
The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life
by David Brooks -
4
In Search of Silence
by Poorna Bell -
5
This Life: Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom
by Martin Hägglund
The Best Self-Help Books of 2019, recommended by Oliver Burkeman
The Best Self-Help Books of 2019, recommended by Oliver Burkeman
The self-help genre is sometimes dismissed as simplistic or over-earnest. But, at their best, self-help books offer powerful insights into how to live. Oliver Burkeman, the Guardian columnist and author of The Antidote, recommends five of the best self-help books published in 2019.
The best books on Happiness Through Negative Thinking, recommended by Oliver Burkeman
You won’t become happy by trying to achieve happiness so why not embrace the full repertoire of human emotions? Guardian columnist Oliver Burkeman recommends the best books on negative thinking.
Interviews where books by Oliver Burkeman were recommended
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1
The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload
by Daniel J Levitin -
2
BrainChains: Your Thinking Brain Explained in Simple Terms
by Theo Compernolle -
3
The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right
by Atul Gawande -
4
The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future
by Kevin Kelly -
5
The Antidote
by Oliver Burkeman
The best books on Productivity, recommended by David Allen
The best books on Productivity, recommended by David Allen
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.
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1
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals
by Oliver Burkeman -
2
Make Your Art No Matter What: Moving Beyond Creative Hurdles
by Beth Pickens -
3
Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself
by Nedra Glover Tawwab -
4
The Way of Integrity: Finding the Path to Your True Self
by Martha Beck -
5
Seeking Wisdom: A Spiritual Path to Creative Connection
by Julia Cameron
The Best Self Help Books of 2021, recommended by Emma Gannon
The Best Self Help Books of 2021, recommended by Emma Gannon
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.
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1
Being You: A New Science of Consciousness
by Anil Seth -
2
Critical Lives: Hannah Arendt
by Samantha Rose Hill -
3
The Case for Rage: Why Anger Is Essential to Anti-Racist Struggle
by Myisha Cherry -
4
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals
by Oliver Burkeman -
5
Free: Coming of Age at the End of History
by Lea Ypi
The Best Philosophy Books of 2021, recommended by Nigel Warburton
The Best Philosophy Books of 2021, recommended by Nigel Warburton
Nigel Warburton—the philosopher, broadcaster and creator of the popular Philosophy Bites podcast—selects five of the best public philosophy books published in 2021, including a defence of righteous rage, an examination of the concept of ‘time management,’ and an intellectual biography of the political philosopher and Holocaust survivor Hannah Arendt.
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1
The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness
by Jonathan Haidt -
2
Meditations for Mortals: Four Weeks to Embrace Your Limitations and Make Time for What Counts
by Oliver Burkeman -
3
Good Reasonable People: The Psychology Behind America's Dangerous Divide
by Keith Payne -
4
A Little History of Psychology
by Nicky Hayes -
5
Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection
by Charles Duhigg
Notable Self-Help & Psychology Books of 2024, recommended by Cal Flyn
Notable Self-Help & Psychology Books of 2024, recommended by Cal Flyn
Five Books deputy editor Cal Flyn offers a concise round-up of the most notable newly released psychology and self-help books of 2024, taking in a study of partisanship in Trump's America, a strongly-argued case against 'the phone-based childhood,' and a manual for improving your own communication skills.
