Glad Books

I've found a particularly helpful book is "The Five Love Languages" It's about the mechanisms that people use to communicate love. Understanding the prefered mechanisms of the people around you will help you understand how to share your feelings in a way that is meaningful to them. It may also help you see how people around you are communicating their love, when you're not getting the message.

I totally agree with "The Five Love Languages"!

I also like the "Chicken Soup" series of books (have Kleenex handy!) and the "Hugs for...." series of books.

Any books by Og Mandino, Dale Carnegie and Norman Vincent Peale are also very inspirational.

Another favorite is "Silver Boxes" by Florence Littaur.

One book that always makes me smile: "Chocolate: The Consuming Passion" by Sandra Boynton

I'll mention the obvious which seems to have been missed:
Pollyanna by by Eleanor H. Porter, Boston, L.C. Page & Company, 1913.

I just finished reading it. Why did it take 40+ years, you may ask? Well, first I had to be old enough to understand it, around 11 or 12. By that time I had seen the Disney film (which was rather different from the book as I've found out), and figured I didn't need to read it.
Then came the teen years when the book was considered "childish, girlie, and beneath me". Ahh, the Angst and Arrogance of youth. Mind you, it was during this period that I read such classics as Peck's Bad Boy by George W. Peck.
I forgot about it until I found this group. Thanks for introducing me to something I should have read years ago.

-Steve

I'm working on reading "Pollyanna" right now. By chapter 3 I am already deeply impressed by that little girl. What incredible strength of character it takes to play the glad game. :) -- Sheila

I just finished the book. How cool was that?! There is a sequal called "Pollyanna Grows Up." There were also several other books contracted after Eleanor Porter died to revive Pollyanna. I may look into those too.

I found a new glad book recommendation called "What Happy People Know" by Dan Baker. Here's a reviewer's description:

Baker, a psychologist and director of the Life Enhancement Program at Canyon Ranch in Tucson, offers a new way to look at unhappiness. He believes that people can teach themselves to be happy instead of remaining trapped in a vicious cycle of stress from work and family: "If you adopt management of your life as a primary goal, you'll be able to participate in your own destiny. But if you squander your energy struggling for complete control, you'll lose the reins of management and become just another leaf in the wind." It's essential for people to avoid such traps as trying to buy happiness or trying to find it through pleasure, Baker argues. Instead, people should use and take advantage of the six happiness tools-appreciation, choice, personal power, leading with strengths, language and stories, and multidimensional living. To demonstrate his strategy, the author offers various case studies. For example, one wealthy CEO comes for therapy, complaining about his children, wife and employees. Baker listens and offers just one piece of advice: he tells the man to visit a pediatric cancer ward; the visit allows the man to look beyond his self-centered complaints. Baker's advice is sound and his presentation engaging, but some readers, especially those coping with serious life crises, may find this approach too New Age or simplistic. He makes the transition from the traps to the tools of happiness sound easy, perhaps too much so.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Two more glad recommendations:

"The Christmas Box" by Richard Paul Evans
"Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott