Books That Can Help Combat Loneliness
More and more people report feeling lonely, with over half of Americans saying they feel this way. And there can be many reasons for loneliness, whether it’s a physical or an emotional distance or feeling like no one understands. Yet through stories, we can connect and see that there is far more understanding than we think. By sharing and taking in our lived and imagined experiences, even if it’s fiction, we can start to see that there are others who think and feel like us. If you find it challenging to connect with others around you, or even with yourself, then perhaps connecting with the right story is precisely what you need to feel a little less alone.
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Add to BookshelfThe Music Shop
by Rachel Joyce
What better way to curb loneliness than to read a story about a man who is terrified of closeness? On a dead-end street in a run-down suburb, there is a music shop that stands small and brightly lit, jam-packed with records of every kind. Like a beacon, the shop attracts the lonely, the sleepless, and the adrift. One day, a beautiful young woman walks into Frank’s shop and asks him to teach her about music. Frank feels compelled to turn and run, yet he is drawn to this mysterious woman. The Music Shop is a story about these two quirky, wonderful characters overcoming emotional baggage and speaks to the healing power of music — and love.
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$18.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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Here for It: A Read with Jenna Pick
by R. Eric Thomas
R. Eric Thomas didn’t know he was different until the world told him so. Everywhere he went — whether it was his rich, mostly white, suburban high school, his conservative black church, or his Ivy League college in a big city — he found himself on the outside looking in. In essays by turns hysterical and heartfelt, Thomas reexamines what it means to be an “other” through the lens of his own life experience. Here for It will resonate deeply and joyfully with everyone who has ever felt pushed to the margins, struggled with self-acceptance, or wished to shine more in a dark world.
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$17.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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The Thursday Murder Club (Netflix Tie-In)
by Richard Osman
It would be difficult to feel lonely in the company of the Thursday Murder Club, the four unlikely friends living in a peaceful retirement village who meet weekly to discuss unsolved crimes. When a local developer is found dead with a mysterious photograph next to his body, the brilliant gang suddenly finds themselves in the middle of their first live case as bodies only continue to pile up. Dubbed a “laugh-out-loud whodunit” by Parade, this is a must-read — with two additional books in the series for when you simply can’t resist more shenanigans and crime-solving from these four septuagenarians.
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$18.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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How to Tell a Story
by The Moth, Meg Bowles, Catherine Burns, Jenifer Hixson, Sarah Austin Jenness and Kate Tellers
The Moth, a leader in the modern storytelling movement, knows that stories are essential to helping us connect. Now, with How to Tell a Story, The Moth guides you to uncover and craft your own unique stories. Filled with empowering, easy-to-follow tips for crafting stories that forge lasting bonds with friends, family, and colleagues alike, this book will help you connect authentically with the world around you and unleash the power of stories in your life. “From toasts to eulogies, from job interviews to social events, this book will help you with ideas, structure, delivery, and more” (CNN).
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$19.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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Wow, No Thank You.
by Samantha Irby
A good laugh can do wonders when you’re feeling lonely, especially a “stay-up-all-night, miss-your-subway-stop, spit-out-your-beverage funny” kind of laugh, as Jia Tolentino puts it. You can expect this from Samantha Irby, beloved author of We Are Never Meeting in Real Life, in her rip-roaring, edgy, and unabashedly raunchy collection of hilarious essays. Wow, No Thank You is an honest, funny, and relatable account from Irby, who is forty and increasingly uncomfortable in her own skin despite what inspirational Instagram infographics have promised her. If this feels familiar to you, this is the book for you.
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$17.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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The Matchmaker’s List
by Sonya Lalli
If you’re looking for your match, put The Matchmaker’s List on your book list. Lalli’s novel tells the story of Raina Anand, a loving main character who finally gave in to family pressure and agreed to let her grandmother play matchmaker. Reading this book takes you through Raina’s life — as it spirals into a parade of Nani-approved bachelors and disastrous blind dates. The Matchmaker’s List is a heartwarming multicultural romantic comedy about finding love where you least expect it, perfect for those on their own search for love.
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$15.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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Between the World and Me
by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Hailed by Toni Morrison as “required reading,” a bold and personal literary exploration of America’s racial history by “the most important essayist in a generation and a writer who changed the national political conversation about race” (Rolling Stone), Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. In Between the World and Me, Coates attempts to answer questions about American history and living in a Black body in a letter to his adolescent son. This poignant book illuminates the past, bracingly confronts our present, and offers a transcendent vision for a way forward.
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$20.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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Call Us What We Carry
by Amanda Gorman
There’s nothing like reading poetry when you’re feeling lonely but don’t exactly have the words to explain how — or what — you’re feeling. In ​​Call Us What We Carry, Gorman becomes our messenger from the past and our voice for the future. The presidential inaugural poet’s luminous and breakout collection of poetry explores history, language, identity, and erasure through an imaginative and intimate collage. Take what you need from Gorman’s lyrics of hope and healing. This beautifully designed volume features poems in many inventive styles and structures and shines a light on a moment of reckoning.
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$17.99Buy from Other Retailers:
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Solito: A Read with Jenna Pick
by Javier Zamora
In Solito, a young poet tells the inspiring story of his migration from El Salvador to the United States at the age of nine in this “gripping memoir” (NPR) of bravery, hope, and finding family. Solito is Zamora’s story of his three-thousand-mile journey from his small town in El Salvador through Guatemala and Mexico and across the U.S. border, but it’s also the story of millions of others who had no choice but to leave home. A memoir as gripping as it is moving, Solito provides an immediate and intimate account not only of a treacherous and near-impossible journey but also of the miraculous kindness and love delivered at the most unexpected moments.
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$19.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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From Strength to Strength
by Arthur C. Brooks
From Strength to Strength is a roadmap for finding purpose, meaning, and success as we age, from bestselling author, Harvard professor, and the Atlantic’s happiness columnist Arthur Brooks. Drawing on social science, philosophy, biography, theology, and eastern wisdom, as well as dozens of interviews with everyday men and women, Brooks shows us that true life success is well within our reach. By refocusing on specific priorities and habits that anyone can learn, such as deep wisdom, detachment from empty rewards, connection and service to others, and spiritual progress, we can set ourselves up for increased happiness. (And dare we say it, perhaps decreased loneliness, too.)
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$28.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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The Midnight Library: A GMA Book Club Pick
by Matt Haig
If you find yourself feeling lonely, then, as The Washington Post puts it, this is “a feel-good book guaranteed to lift your spirits.” Somewhere beyond the edge of the universe is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the story of your life as it is, along with another book for the other life you could have lived if you had made a different choice at any point in your life. While we all wonder how our lives might have been different if we had made a different choice, would any of these other lives be better? In Haig’s The Midnight Library, Nora Seed travels through her various lives and must decide what is truly fulfilling and makes a life worth living.
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$18.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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Bittersweet (Oprah’s Book Club)
by Susan Cain
If you’ve ever wondered why you like sad music, if you find comfort or inspiration on a rainy day, if you react intensely to music, art, nature, and beauty, then you probably identify with the bitterÂsweet state of mind. In Bittersweet, the author of the bestselling phenomenon Quiet explores why we experience sorrow and longing, and how embracing the bittersweetness at the heart of life is the true path to creativity, conÂnection, and transcendence. At a time of profound discord and personal anxiety, Bittersweet brings us together in deep and unexpected ways and teaches how sadness can be your superpower.
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$18.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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Tomorrow Will Be Different
by Sarah McBride
Tomorrow Will Be Different is “a brave, powerful memoir” (People) from Sarah McBride, the activist elected as the first openly transgender state senator in U.S. history. Informative, heartbreaking, and profoundly empowering, Tomorrow Will Be Different is McBride’s story of love and loss and a powerful entry point into the LGBTQ community’s battle for equal rights and what it means to be openly transgender. “If you’re living your own internal struggle, this book can help you find a way to live authentically, fully, and freely,” says President Joe Biden in the foreword.
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$19.00Buy from Other Retailers:
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Seek You
by Kristen Radtke
In Seek You, Kristen Radtke’s wide-ranging exploration of our inner lives and public selves, Radtke digs into the ways in which we attempt to feel closer to one another, and the distance that remains. Through the lenses of gender and violence, technology and art, Radtke ushers us through a history of loneliness and longing and shares what feels impossible to share.
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$30.00Buy from Other Retailers:
