Every year at New Year’s Eve, we make resolutions to better ourselves in the 12 months ahead. Very often we come up a little bit short in our ambitions. But this year will be different! This year, we’ll take off the weight, get into shape, get organized, learn a new skill, go on a trip, save money, or just treat ourselves better! No matter what goal or goals you may have set for yourself in 2018, know that the library is here to help! These are just a few of the books available to checkout that can set you down the right path on your journey, whatever it may be.
Little Book of Lykke: Secrets of the World’s Happiest People by Meik Wiking
Lykke (Luu-kah) (n): Happiness
It’s easy to see why Denmark is often called the world’s happiest country. Not only do they have equal parental leave for men and women, free higher education and trains that run on time, but they burn more candles per household than anywhere else.
So nobody knows more about happiness – what the Danes call lykke – than Meik Wiking, CEO of the Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen and author of the bestselling sensation The Little Book of Hygge . But he believes that, whilst we can certainly learn a lot from the Danes about finding fulfilment, the keys to happiness are actually buried all around the globe.
In this captivating book, he takes us on a treasure hunt to unlock the doors to inner fulfilment. From how we spend our precious time, to how we relate to our neighbours and cook dinner, he gathers evidence, stories and tips from the very happiest corners of the planet. This is the ultimate guide to how we can all find a little more lykke in our lives.
Meik Wiking is the CEO of The Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen and is one of the world’s leading experts in happiness. Committed to understanding happiness, subjective well-being and quality of life, Meik works with countries across the world to discover and explore global trends of life satisfaction. Only someone absolutely dedicated to happiness sits in coffee shops across the world counting peoples’ smiles!
His first book, The Little Book of Hygge, became an international bestseller and will soon be published in 31 countries.
Description provided by Goodreads.
Available Formats:
Bobby Flay Fit: 200 Recipes for a Healthy Lifestyle by Bobby Flay
Cook, eat, and be fit with 200 recipes from 
Bobby Flay, whose approach to healthy eating is all about flavor–not eliminating anything from your diet.
With a profession that has him constantly developing and tasting new recipes, chef Bobby Flay does not eschew any foods: bread, bacon, and butter are still all on the table. His secret to staying healthy is to have on hand an arsenal of low-calorie flavor bombs–like rubs, relishes, and marinades–to transform lean proteins, whole grains, and fresh produce into craveworthy meals at home. In Bobby Flay Fit, Bobby shares smoothies and juices, breakfast bowls, snacks to fuel workouts, hearty salads, nourishing soups, satisfying dinners, and lightened-up desserts. With fitness tips and a look into the chef’s daily healthy routines, this cookbook is for those who want to eat right without overhauling their pantries or sacrificing taste.
Description provided by Goodreads.
Available Formats:
Waking Up in Winter: In Search of What Really Matters at Midlife by Cheryl Richardson
Internationally recognized coach and New York Times bestselling author Cheryl Richardson has toured the world empowering others to make lasting change. But when Richardson’s own life no longer worked as it once had, a persistent, inner voice offered unmistakable guidance: it was time to reevaluate her life to uncover what really mattered.
Waking Up in Winter is the candid and revelatory account of how at midlife, Richardson found renewed contentment and purpose through a heroic, inward journey. The unfolding story, told through intimate journal entries, follows Richardson from the first, gentle nudges of change to a thoughtfully reimagined life – a soulful, spring awakening.
With an experienced coach’s intuition and an artist’s eye, Richardson reexamines everything – her marriage, her work, her friendships, and her priorities – gracefully shedding parts of the self that no longer serve along the way.
In the end, she not only discovers what really matters at midlife, she invites readers to join her in the inquiry process by providing thought-provoking questions designed to usher them through their own season of transformation.
Offering up Richardson’s most powerful teaching tool yet – her own life – Waking Up in Winter takes readers on a brave, spiritual adventure that shows us all how to live a more authentic and meaningful life.
Description provided by Goodreads.
Available Formats:
Food for Life: Delicious and Healthy Comfort Food From My Table To Yours! by Laila Ali
Four-time undefeated boxing world champion, cooking personality, and passionate health advocate, Laila Ali’s Food For Life features over 100 sassy recipes that will help you “swap it out.”
In Laila’s kitchen, nutrition is King, but flavor is Queen! In her debut cookbook, Laila shows you how to make knockout meals in ways that work with your busy and demanding life, so you can eat healthy, delicious food without feeling hungry!
Food for Life shares more than 100 of Laila’s favorite recipes. Whether you’re new to cooking, busy feeding a family, or ready to eat healthier, Food for Life will be your guidebook!
In Food for Life, you’ll find real-life recipes to bring simple, healthy, hearty, and satisfying food to the table, such as:
– Stovetop Ratatouille
– Oven-“Fried” Chicken
– West Coast Southern Greens
– The Greatest of All Time Burger (her father’s favorite)
– Heavenly Lemon Yogurt Cake
Description provided by Goodreads.
Available Formats:
Happiness is a Choice You Make by John Leland
An extraordinary look at what it means to grow old and a heartening guide to well-being, Happiness Is a Choice You Make weaves together the stories and wisdom of six New Yorkers who number among the “oldest old”– those eighty-five and up.
In 2015, when the award-winning journalist John Leland set out on behalf of The New York Times to meet members of America’s fastest-growing age group, he anticipated learning of challenges, of loneliness, and of the deterioration of body, mind, and quality of life. But the elders he met took him in an entirely different direction. Despite disparate backgrounds and circumstances, they each lived with a surprising lightness and contentment. The reality Leland encountered upended contemporary notions of aging, revealing the late stages of life as unexpectedly rich and the elderly as incomparably wise.
Happiness Is a Choice You Make is an enduring collection of lessons that emphasizes, above all, the extraordinary influence we wield over the quality of our lives. With humility, heart, and wit, Leland has crafted a sophisticated and necessary reflection on how to “live better”–informed by those who have mastered the art.
Description provided by Goodreads.
Available Formats:
Let’s Talk About Sleep: A Guide to Understanding and Improving Your Slumber by Daniel A. Barone & Lawrence A. Armour
News about sleep is everywhere we turn, and the statistics are numbing: Some 50-70 million Americans are affected by chronic sleep disorders and intermittent sleep problems; an estimated 30-35% of adults complain of insomnia; one in every 25 Americans takes a prescription sleep medication; more than a third of American adults don’t get enough sleep on a regular basis; sleep disorders account for an estimated $16 billion in medical costs each year, plus indirect costs due to missed days of work, decreased productivity and related factors.
And questions abound: why do we need to sleep at all? What happens when we sleep? What happens to the brain? We know the brain is active when we sleep, but what about the mind? And what are dreams?
An accessible and lively take on sleep, this book provides answers to those and other key questions. Along the way, it highlights the lessons a well-known neurologist has learned and what he shares with his patients on a daily basis. It discusses — in terms everyone can understand — what we know about sleep, what can go wrong with it, and what we can do to fix it. It also delves into what some of the great scientists and spiritual teachers have told us about sleep.
The book is packed with useful information and suggestions that will improve all aspects of readers’ lives.
Description provided by Goodreads.
Available Formats:
The Personalized Diet: Why One-Size-Fits-All Diets Don’t Work by Dr. Eran Segal
A paradigm-shifting diet book that explains why one-size-fits-all diets don’t work and helps readers customize their diet to lose weight and improve health.
There are certain things we take as universal truths when it comes to dieting and health: kale is good; ice cream is bad. Until now. When Drs. Segal and Elinav published their groundbreaking research on personalized nutrition, it created a media frenzy. They had proved that individuals react differently to the same foods-a food that might be healthy for one person is unhealthy for another. In one stroke, they made all universal diet programs obsolete. THE PERSONALIZED DIET helps readers understand the fascinating science behind their work, gives them the tools to create an individualized diet and lifestyle plan (based on their reactions to favorite foods) and puts them on the path to losing weight, feeling good, and preventing disease by eating in the way that’s right for them.
Description provided by Goodreads.
Available Formats:
The Four Tendencies: The Indispensable Personality Profiles That Reveal How to Make Your Life Better (and Other People’s Lives Better, Too) by Gretchen Rubin
In this groundbreaking analysis of personality type, bestselling author of Better Than Before and The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin reveals the one simple question that will transform what you do at home, at work, and in life.
During her multibook investigation into understanding human nature, Gretchen Rubin realized that by asking the seemingly dry question “How do I respond to expectations?” we gain explosive self-knowledge. She discovered that based on their answer, people fit into Four Tendencies: Upholders, Questioners, Obligers, and Rebels. Our Tendency shapes every aspect of our behavior, so using this framework allows us to make better decisions, meet deadlines, suffer less stress, and engage more effectively.
More than 600,000 people have taken her online quiz, and managers, doctors, teachers, spouses, and parents already use the framework to help people make significant, lasting change.
The Four Tendencies hold practical answers if you’ve ever thought…
· People can rely on me, but I can’t rely on myself.
· How can I help someone to follow good advice?
· People say I ask too many questions.
· How do I work with someone who refuses to do what I ask or who keeps telling me what to do?
With sharp insight, compelling research, and hilarious examples, The Four Tendencies will help you get happier, healthier, more productive, and more creative. It’s far easier to succeed when you know what works for you.
Description provided by Goodreads.
Available Formats:
Dollars and Sense: How We Misthink Money and How to Spend Smarter by Dan Ariely & Jeff Kreisler
Why is paying for things painful?
Why are we comfortable overpaying for something in the present just because we’ve overpaid for it in the past?
Why is it easy to pay $4 for a soda on vacation, when we wouldn’t spend more than $1 on that same soda at our local grocery store?
We think of money as numbers, values, and amounts, but when it comes down to it, when we actually use our money, we engage our hearts more than our heads. Emotions play a powerful role in shaping our financial behavior, often making us our own worst enemies as we try to save, access value, and spend responsibly. In Dollars and Sense, bestselling author and behavioral economist Dan Ariely teams up with financial comedian and writer Jeff Kreisler to challenge many of our most basic assumptions about the precarious relationship between our brains and our money. In doing so, they undermine many of personal finance’s most sacred beliefs and explain how we can override some of our own instincts to make better financial choices.
Exploring a wide range of everyday topics—from the lure of pain-free spending with credit cards to the pitfalls of household budgeting to the seductive power of holiday sales—Ariely and Kreisler demonstrate how our misplaced confidence in our spending habits frequently leads us astray, costing us more than we realize, whether it’s the real value of the time we spend driving forty-five minutes to save $10 or our inability to properly assess what the things we buy are actually worth. Together Ariely and Kreisler reveal the emotional forces working against us and how we can counteract them. Mixing case studies and anecdotes with concrete advice and lessons, they cut through the unconscious fears and desires driving our worst financial instincts and teach us how to improve our money habits.
The result not only reveals the rationale behind our most head-scratching financial choices but also offers clear guidance for navigating the treacherous financial landscape of the brain. Fascinating, engaging, funny, and essential, Dollars and Sense provides the practical tools we need to understand and improve our financial choices, save and spend smarter, and ultimately live better.
Description provided by Goodreads.
Available Formats:
Lifelong Yoga: Maximizing Your Balance, Flexibility, and Core Strength in Your 50s, 60s, and Beyond by Sage Rountree
Yoga gives active people vital tools for healthy aging: strength, flexibility, balance, and focus. In this one-of-a-kind book, Sage Rountree and Alexandra DeSiato clearly describe the what, why, and how of poses and routines that help keep people in any decade of life–but especially older people–fit and injury-free. Addressing the four biggest concerns of the older yoga student–balance, core strength, hip flexibility, and recovery–Lifelong Yoga is a unique and essential guide to the philosophy, poses, and routines that can help solve the challenges we encounter as we age.
The authors offer poses and routines aimed toward specific goals, such as improving balance, maintaining strength and flexibility, or recovering properly between workouts. Each sequence is fully illustrated with photos and introduced with a brief overview of the benefits of the movements along with modifications and options suited to individual requirements. Lifelong Yoga also provides sequences that help support specific activities such as running, swimming, or golf–as well as yard work, travel, and caring for grandchildren. Straightforward schedules suggesting ways to incorporate yoga in daily routines illustrate how easy it is to receive yoga’s benefits with minimal time commitment.
Rountree and DeSiato also explain how meditation, mindfulness, breathing practices, and the physical practice of yoga can help with both mental flexibility and relaxation, and with staying focused and mentally acute. From the practical to the philosophical, at home or in class, Lifelong Yoga is a friendly, wise handbook for living in a changing body over the course of a long life.
Description provided by Goodreads.
Available Formats:
Rocco’s Healthy + Delicious: More than 200 (Mostly) Plant-Based Recipes for Everyday Life by Rocco DiSpirito
The James Beard Award-winning, #1 New York Times bestselling author, chef, and healthy living expert gives his fans what they have been clamoring for—a beautiful cookbook featuring more than 250 flavorful, mostly plant-based recipes for eating well every day.
Over the last decade, Americans have become increasingly aware of the health benefits of eating whole foods. But while we’re all looking to reduce our reliance on processed foods and eat fewer animal products, one thing has been missing: a cookbook that makes it easy and affordable (not to mention, delicious) to live a plant-based lifestyle.
Enter celebrity chef and health crusader Rocco Dispirito. He knows firsthand that a plant-based diet can deliver real results for weight loss and overall health, and he’s on a mission to make healthy eating accessible to everyone once and for all. In Rocco’s Healthy and Delicious, he offers more than 250 recipes featuring wholesome dishes that use fresh, local, organic ingredients.
In Rocco’s Healthy and Delicious, readers will find simple, everyday recipes for meals, snacks, desserts, smoothies and more. Start your day with Pomegranate Chia Oatmeal or a Strawberry Pistachio Breakfast Bar. Power up with a Chopped Salad with Avocado Crema or Coconut Cilantro Chicken Soup. Feast over Cauliflower Rice Risotto or Thai Curry Veggie Burgers. Indulge in Coconut Macaroons and No Bake Chocolate Chip Cookies. All of these recipes are plant-based, and most importantly: delicious.
With beautiful photography, no-nonsense nutritional guidance, a pantry overview, and more, Rocco offers a real-life guide to eating real food.
Description provided by Goodreads.
Available Formats:
The How Not To Die Cookbook: 100+ Recipes to Help Prevent and Reverse Disease by Michael Greger
From Michael Greger, M.D., FACLM, the physician behind the trusted and wildly popular website Nutritionfacts.org, and author of the New York Times bestselling book How Not to Die, comes a beautifully-designed, comprehensive cookbook complete with more than 120 recipes for delicious, life-saving, plant-based meals, snacks, and beverages.
Dr. Michael Greger’s bestselling book, How Not to Die, presented the scientific evidence behind the only diet that can prevent and reverse many of the causes of premature death and disability. Now, The How Not to Die Cookbook puts that science into action. From Superfood Breakfast Bites to Spaghetti Squash Puttanesca to Two-Berry Pie with Pecan-Sunflower Crust, every recipe in The How Not to Die Cookbook offers a delectable, easy-to-prepare, plant-based dish to help anyone eat their way to better health.
Rooted in the latest nutrition science, these easy-to-follow, stunningly photographed recipes will appeal to anyone looking to live a longer, healthier life. Featuring Dr. Greger’s Daily Dozen—the best ingredients to add years to your life—The How Not to Die Cookbook is destined to become an essential tool in healthy kitchens everywhere.
Description provided by Goodreads.
Available Formats:
Build Stuff with Wood: A Basic Guide for Beginning Woodworkers by Asa B. Christiana
Build Stuff with Wood is a true beginner’s guide to woodworking, aimed at anyone who is interested in the craft but has only a few tools and no real idea where to start. The idea behind the book is to begin with a basic toolset (a circular saw, chopsaw, cordless drill, jigsaw, and a few hand tools) and then add tools as you go. Step-by-step projects are presented showing what you can build with that tool (plus the basic toolset). For example, adding a router to your tool arsenal allows you to gracefully round edges on tables and shelves; buying a simple doweling jig opens up the world of joinery. As well as power tools, hand tools are also introduced. In all, 14 fun projects will be presented, all built with just a few woodworking tools and off-the-shelf lumber.
Description provided by Goodreads.
Available Formats:
The Fine Art of Paper Flowers: A Guide to Making Beautiful and Lifelike Botanicals by Tiffanie Turner
An inspiring, practical and gorgeous guide to crafting the most realistic and artful paper flowers for arrangements, art, decor, wearables and more, from San Francisco botanical artist Tiffanie Turner.
The Fine Art of Paper Flowers is an elevated art and craft guide that features complete step-by-step instructions for over 30 of Tiffanie Turner’s widely admired, unique, lifelike paper flowers and their foliage, from bougainvillea to English roses to zinnias. In the book, Turner also guides readers through making her signature giant paper peony, shares all of her secrets for special paper treatments, candy-striping, playing with color and creating botanical imperfections, and shows how to turn paper flowers into gorgeous garlands, headdresses, bouquets and more. These stunning creations can be made from simple and inexpensive materials and the book’s detailed tutorials and beautiful photography make it easy to achieve dramatic and lifelike results.
Description provided by Goodreads.
Available Formats:
Oil Painting Essentials: Mastering Portraits, Figures, Still Lifes, Landscapes, and Interiors by Gregg Kreutz
From the author of the classic Watson-Guptill best seller Problem Solving for Oil Painters comes an essential guide demonstrating the universal oil painting techniques that allow artists to expand their horizons, break out of ruts, and master a variety of subjects, including figures, portraits, still life, landscapes, and interiors.
Many painters limit themselves to a particular genre out of habit or fear, but in Oil Painting Essentials, art instructor Gregg Kreutz reveals how connected oil painting techniques are no matter what subject an artist tackles. Arranged by essential artistic focal points, each chapter reveals the challenges and rewards that painters face when covering specific genres. Through step-by-step lessons and examples from the works of oil painting masters past and present, Kreutz shows how artists can strengthen their skillset for one type of subject matter by painting in another area they may not be as familiar with. This comprehensive breakdown of oil painting provides all of the tools and encouragement painters need to successfully take on any type of oil painting.
Description provided by Goodreads.
Available Formats:
Computers for Seniors: Get Stuff Done in 13 Easy Lessons by Carrie Ewin, Cheryl Ewin, & Chris Ewin
Computers for Seniors is a step-by-step guide that will take you all the way from pressing the “On” button on your new computer to being a confident user who can send email to family and friends, shop online safely, read the latest news, watch funny YouTube videos, share cute pictures of your grandkids, check the weather forecast, and much more.
You’ll learn to:
-Plug in, set up, and turn on your computer
-Print and share photos of your grandkids, vacations, pets, friends, and special life events
-Install helpful tools like a calendar, money manager, and weather tracker
-Search the internet for news, recipes, gardening tips, sports updates, and anything else that interests you
-Watch entertaining YouTube videos or educational lectures and make video calls to anywhere in the world
-Find and listen to new music (or your favorite classics) and read electronic books
-Email your friends and family
-Stay safe online and keep your private information secure
Computers for Seniors will show you how to get what you really want from your PC, with the help of full-color illustrations, friendly instructions, and a touch of humor. Each lesson has small exercises to test your skills and help you practice, to make sure you feel comfortable with what you’ve learned before you move on.
It’s never too late to have fun and get more out of your PC–Computers for Seniors will ease you into the computer generation by guiding you every step of the way.
Description provided by Goodreads.
Available Formats: