Book Therapy

Write Your Own Prescription for Sanity

During a crisis, the human brain shuts off all questionable information and demands truth, verifiable facts, and reliable direction. Fire? Where is the exit? Pandemic? Where is the vaccine or emergency room? Tornado? Where is the safe room?

When the crisis is not real but manufactured, the human brain rapidly adds coping to survival actions. If it feels to you that the news cycle has become more volatile and faster-paced over the last two weeks, it is not your imagination. Trump’s multiple dumpster fires every day create a sense of chaos that, in turn, can create a sense of anxiety and helplessness.

There are two immediate escape paths away from too much information or manufactured bullshit. One coping strategy is to focus on the meaning, significance, and trends in the news rather than the events themselves. The other strategy is to turn off the screens and read a book.

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I have a library. I love it and everyone who comes into my house goes right to the library. It’s the biggest room. It’s where the books, the best light, most comfortable chairs, falling water fountains, and a refreshment bar welcome you. There are no screens there, just floor-to-ceiling, custom-built bookcases.

It’s a sanctuary for sanity. It’s a safe harbor in this year of stormy social media, “flood the zone” lies and announcements from the Oval Office, and daily attacks on our attention, inalienable rights, and sense of right from wrong.

Before the 2025 Trump daily “flood the zone” of announcements, lies, and reversals, and before the 2020 pandemic of information stress, isolation, and uncertainty, there was a 2017 report by the American Psychological Association that addressed the stress of wanting truths and straight talk and not getting it. Their study showed 95% of American adults follow the news regularly, even though more than half of them say it causes them stress, and over two-thirds say they believe the media blows things out of proportion.

Therapy for Writers and Everyone Else

Reading is almost as important to me as writing. I love writing, but I love reading more. And doing what we love is so vital right now!

Reading for what matters most to you is as healthy as taking a walk or getting outside for 15 minutes of sunshine. Physical books are relaxing and often recommended for sleep therapy. Shutting off television and all screens matters because blue light emitted from screens (e-readers and other devices) can interfere with melatonin production, a hormone crucial for sleep regulation.

People who read books experience a slower rate of memory decline. Reading sharpens cognitive functions, such as memory, attention span, analytical thinking, and lower levels of depression and anxiety.

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Great Writers are Extensive Readers

Rarely is reading a leisure activity for writers. Reading is more like breathing and feeling alive because writers have brains that demand critical thinking, observations, learning, and ultimately, output.

The professionals with the best systems for turning words into meaning, creativity, and storytelling are writers. Others call this productivity. Writers call this what’s going to happen with or without someone else’s tools, frameworks, or hacks. What works for a great writer will never work for you, and that’s why finding your own relationship with books is all that matters.

What matters to you is most important. That’s why the many book lists and recommendations may contribute to your overload instead of helping. I don’t know what’s right for you, so I offer stories about books that spark interesting conversations with many high-intelligence adults (our community). We get a lot of book recommendations from this community because a certain book made them feel something, and they want to share that joy and brain-pleasing awareness with others.

I get it.

Instead of telling you what you might like, how about I tell you what I’ve read, more than once. Which books gave me words and tiny, totally-achievable actions I could not screw up and, thus, became actions, based on knowledge and a change of mind or heart to do something different or better with what the book taught.

What was I hoping to learn with each book? Something that gives me that feel-good hit of dopamine when I have a thought that sparks awe. We love the words that make us stop and write in the margin or even create an index card or note somewhere because, at the moment, we really intend to write about it.

Top Two Books In Each Area of Our Community

In conversations with members of our community of gifted, professionals, and communicators, I believe each of you has a pile of books that you’ve purchased and have not finished. Or even started. Some of you even feature book lists and “what to read this weekend” in your online writing. That does not seem specific enough for me.

That’s why I’m offering my take on the two best books in the past 25 years that speak to the core and delight of the four areas that define the characteristics of our community.

Giftedness

Professional

Communications

Life and Grief

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Books with gifted adult emphasis

The Gifted Adult. A Revolutionary Guide to Liberating Everyday Genius. Mary-Elaine Jacobsen, Psy.D. November 2000.

I purchased this in December 2020. The global pandemic and movement we now call the GPC Community started in the same year.

This book was published before email. That was before laptops or cell phones. That was the year after two PhD students founded Google. Dr. Jacobsen is still practicing. She’s still publishing.

This pioneering book is based on research and clinical experience to show America’s 20 million gifted adults how to identify and free their extraordinary potential. It presents the first tool for rating your Evolutionary Intelligence Quotient through an in-depth personality-type profile.

The Gifted Adult offers new insight about the psychological makeup and development of gifted individuals. Jacobsen challenges current definitions of giftedness and offers one that places psychological rather than cognitive characteristics at the very core, providing more detailed explanations of achievement and underachievement among gifted adults than ever before.

This book is the one that threw a flaming match into a large pile of dry kindling, which became the bonfire we dance around today called the Community of Gifted Professionals and Communicators.

The Price of Clarity. What No One Told The Gifted. Ron van Helvoirt. May 2025.

This book was not written to please or to fit within existing frameworks. It questions them. If that makes you uncomfortable — good. Clarity always does. As we begin to discuss the term giftedness, we must stretch our minds. Notice what pushes your buttons in this book — because that’s exactly where you are stuck. I never liked the word “𝘎𝘪𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘥𝘯𝘦𝘴𝘴.” It’s been taken over by programs, coaches, and expert organizations that have turned it into an industry. This book was written outside that system—for those who sense there’s more truth in their own experience than in all the guidance combined.

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Books with professional emphasis

The Future of The Professions: How Technology Will Transform The Work of Human Experts. Daniel Susskind & Richard Susskind. January 2016.

This book predicts the decline of today’s professions and describes the people and systems that will replace them. It’s the first book to assess and question the relevance of the professions in the 21st century.

Because this book happened before the current AI conversation about disappearing professions, the research and context of this book gain impact if you read it again, every year. The study of human nature is worth the price of the book because one theme running through the stories is that every professional group strongly agrees that technology will change everything, excluding them. Each profession thinks they are so extraordinary that they are out of range for technology invasion.

A World Without Work: Technology, Automation, and How We Should Respond. Daniel Susskind. May 2021.

Perhaps you did not believe everything in the 2016 book; so, Daniel Suskind returns with a more powerful, more practical book because the threat of technological unemployment is now real. It’s happening to you now.

Here’s a fascinating thesis for further discussion and writing. Suskind believes technological progress could bring about unprecedented prosperity, solving one of humanity’s oldest problems: how to make sure that everyone has enough to live on. The challenges will be to distribute this prosperity fairly, to constrain the burgeoning power of Big Tech, and to provide meaning in a world where work is no longer the center of our lives.

This book came out before Trump 2.0, before Big Tech billionaires, and before the corruption and greed. So now, we need to challenge the thesis. Do you believe Big Tech will distribute prosperity fairly?

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Books with communicator emphasis

Story Intelligence: The Craft of Authentic Storytelling, Made Smarter with AI.Gabrielle Dolan. January 2026

We featured Gabrielle in profiles published in our GPC Blog. She has written several books, and I agree with her that this is the best one. I got an advance copy of the book to read and make sure I’m giving you the best heads up for everything that matters to communicators.

This book combines the best of AI efficiency with human creativity,

There is no definition for story intelligence, so Dolan created one: The ability to purposefully and skilfully use authentic storytelling to communicate with clarity and to connect, engage, and inspire.

In a world where AI-generated content floods every platform, an authentic human connection has never been more valuable. Story Intelligence shows you how to bridge the gap between artificial intelligence and powerful human stories.

You’ll discover how to use AI as a creative partner to enhance your storytelling, without compromising your credibility or losing your unique voice.

In short, AI will continue to evolve, deepfakes will become even more convincing and misinformation will persist. The battle for trust will define the coming decades. In an age of distrust, authentic stories are your greatest asset, maybe even your superpower. When you know how to tell a great story and how to use AI to help, your storytelling intelligence knows no bounds.

Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection. Charles Duhigg. February 2024

Communication is a superpower and the best communicators understand that whenever we speak, we’re actually participating in one of three conversations: practical (What’s this really about?), emotional (How do we feel?), and social (Who are we?). If you don’t know what kind of conversation you’re having, you’re unlikely to connect.

Duhigg is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist. This is a storyteller writing a book. It’s more than a manual for communication because it’s the power of storytelling, making 320 pages easy to read and convert to new habits.

How much of our reading do we convert into new habits? We can guess. I say less than 10% of what we read goes beyond yellow highlighters and notes in the margins. Even with note-capturing and note-crunching tools, using AI, we still can’t turn knowledge into better ways of behaving.

We can even ask ChatGPT, which I did, and here’s the answer: I got nothing. “Human cognition and behavior are far too intricate for the statistic you seek.”

Books for Life and Grief

Life is in the Transitions: Mastering Change at Any Age. Bruce Feiler. July 2020

The idea that we’ll have one job, one relationship, one source of happiness is hopelessly outdated.

For me, this was the best book for grieving the loss of a business partner, spouse of 42 years, and the massive changes that were ahead and could take years, not months. It is impossible to tell which direction is best when you are tossed into the vortex of permanent shifts in relationships, identity, financial recalibrations, retirement options, and new business starts that support a movement of awakening giants of gifteness, professionalism, and communication.

The election of 2024 seemed far away when I first tapped into the wisdom and practical action steps of this book. When the shock of a second Trump term hit in 2025, I was glad I had four years of turning lemons into lemonade with Feiler’s guidebook for all ages.

• Linear life is dead.
• Life is a deck of disruptions and transitions.
• Our healing, transitions, and transformations are our own – yet they are never meant to be done alone.

One of those books that’s so profoundly aligned with the zeitgeist that you end up underlining the whole book. . . . Bruce Feiler is the perfect person to lead us on this journey.—Arianna Huffington, Thrive Global

Tiny Experiments: How to Live Freely in a Goal-Obsessed World. Anne-Laure Le Cunff, Ph.D., neuroscientist and founder of Ness Labs. March 2025.

This book is an anti-productivity manifesto. Ryder Carroll, creator of the Bullet Journal said, “This is required reading for anyone who wants to make the most of their life.”

Cal Newport, author of Deep Work and other books said, “Anne-Laure Le Cunff shows how to separate ambitious from rigid linear goals, allowing uncertainty to bloom into possibility and a meaningful life to emerge organically.”

Some may try to label this a productivity book. I found it far more valuable. It’s a guide for better questions and hard questions. It’s permission for imperfection and liberation from the box we may have put ourselves in or allowed society to box us in.

It qualifies as a Life and Grief book because this is about 100% human traits of curiosity, discovery, authentic ambitions, learning by trying, and living instead of wasting time chasing a quest for purpose.

We Want Your Story, Not Your Book List

Of the hundreds of books you’ve found most impactful and actionable in the past five years, which one is your preference for gifted adult insights?

Which one is your preference for professional choices and your future in the world of work?

Which one is your preference for communications practices, storytelling, and your relationship with AI?

Which one seems to speak to life lessons and the grief that comes with every big loss or transition?

What is your story that goes with the book? How did you turn words into intentions and strategies?

Love to know what you think.