For Buddhist monks, cleaning well is a cardinal skill and, in A Monk's Guide to a Clean House and Mind, listeners will discover their never-before-shared cleaning pro tips. From cleaning up everything from your kitchen sink, toilet, and that pile of unidentified stuff in the corner of your garage to your mind, body, and spirit, this book will guide you in creating a home environment that will calm your thoughts and nourish your soul.

The definitive guide that teaches you how to use the Japanese concept of wabi sabi to reshape every area of your life and find happiness right where you are.

Relax and find happiness amid the swirl of the modern world with this internationally best-selling guide to simplifying your life by a Japanese monk who embodies the wisdom of Zen.

When Englishman Chris Broad landed in a rural village in northern Japan he wondered if he'd made a huge mistake. With no knowledge of the language and zero teaching experience, was he was about to be the most quickly fired English teacher in Japan's history? Abroad in Japan charts a decade of living in a foreign land and the chaos and culture clash that comes with it. Packed with hilarious and fascinating stories, this book seeks out to unravel one the world's most mysterious and impenetrable cultures.

Think of a time when you were worried about something, but then you suddenly realized how insignificant it was. Isn’t it amazing how much lighter you felt? The key is to focus only on the here and now. By doing so, you free yourself from unnecessary anxiety, and your mind will be at peace.

Bring meaning and joy to all your days with this internationally best-selling guide to the Japanese concept of ikigai - the happiness of always being busy - as revealed by the daily habits of the world's longest-living people.

Japan is the forge of the world’s fantasies: karaoke and the Walkman, manga and anime, Pac-Man and Pokémon, online imageboards and emojis. But as Japan media veteran Matt Alt proves in this brilliant investigation, these novelties did more than entertain. They paved the way for our perplexing modern lives.

Most of us know we own too much stuff. We feel the weight and burden of our clutter, and we tire of cleaning and managing and organizing. While excess consumption leads to bigger houses, faster cars, fancier technology, and cluttered homes, it never brings happiness. Rather, it results in a desire for more. It redirects our greatest passions to things that can never fulfill, and it distracts us from the very lives we wish we were living. But it doesn't have to be this way.

An innovative new take on the travel guide, Rice, Noodle, Fish decodes Japan's extraordinary food culture through a mix of in-depth narrative and insider advice. In this 5,000-mile journey through the noodle shops, tempura temples, and teahouses of Japan, Matt Goulding, cocreator of the enormously popular Eat This, Not That! book series, navigates the intersection between food, history, and culture, creating one of the most ambitious and complete books ever written about Japanese culinary culture from the Western perspective.

Through a study of the way of the samurai, Nitobe identifies the seven virtues most widely recognized by the Japanese: rectitude, courage, benevolence, politeness, veracity, honor, and loyalty. In sharing these moral guidelines, handed down over generations, Nitobe gives the world unique insight into a previously unexplored code of honor.

The wise people of Japan believe that we all have a reason for being. It is our duty to find the value of life, known as Ikigai. Once you embrace Ikigai and Kaizen as the ultimate way of life, you will witness a dramatically great change in your overall well-being and state of mind. Only then will you be able to clearly see the universal secret to longevity, happiness, and fulfilled life! If you’re new to these life-changing concepts and you want to take charge of your happiness, don’t look past this book.

Caradonna's unique and concise history broadens our understanding of what "sustainability" means, revealing how it progressed from a relatively marginal concept to an ideal that shapes everything from individual lifestyles, government and corporate strategies, and even national and international policy. For anyone seeking understand the history of those striving to make the world a better place to live, here's a place to start.

Take a trip to old Japan with William Scott Wilson as he travels the ancient Kiso Road, a legendary route that remains much the same today as it was hundreds of years ago. The Kisoji, which runs through the Kiso Valley in the Japanese Alps, has been in use since at least 701 CE. In the 17th century, it was the route that the daimyo (warlords) used for their biennial trips - along with their samurai and porters - to the new capital of Edo (now Tokyo).

When Christine Platt set out on her journey to live with less, she never intended to become The Afrominimalist. She just wanted to tame the chaos in her closet! But after struggling with the austerity and whiteness of mainstream minimalism, Christine realized why minimalism often seems unattainable for so many: the emphasis on all-white, barren aesthetics distracts from the practice of living with intention. And so, she decided to do things her way by curating a life of less influenced by the African diaspora.

Suffering from PTSD and severe depression from past trauma, battling an addiction to overprescribed psychiatric medication, and at the rock bottom of his career, journalist Brad Wetzler had nowhere to go. So he set out on a journey to wander and hopefully find himself—and the world—again. Into the Soul of the World is Wetzler’s thrilling, impactful, and heartrending memoir of healing—physically, emotionally, and spiritually. An adventure journalist at heart, Wetzler mixes travelogue with empowering insights about his inner journey to better care for his own mental health.

Messy: The Power of Disorder to Transform Our Lives celebrates the benefits that messiness has in our lives: why it’s important, why we resist it, and why we should embrace it instead. Using research from neuroscience, psychology, social science, as well as captivating examples of real people doing extraordinary things, Tim Harford explains that the human qualities we value – creativity, responsiveness, resilience – are integral to the disorder, confusion, and disarray that produce them.

Due to a culture that encourages perfection, hustle, and fictional life/work balance, many are burning out. Behind her Instagram-projected image of “happy wellness founder”, Poppy Jamie was also struggling mightily with perfectionism and life purpose. She began working with mental health experts and researchers to find practical tools to overcome her inner critic and rewire her mind.

Aging - not cancer, not heart disease - is the underlying cause of most human death and suffering. The same cascade of biological changes that renders us wrinkled and gray also opens the door to dementia and disease. We work furiously to conquer each individual disease, but we never think to ask: Is aging itself necessary? Nature tells us it is not: There are tortoises and salamanders who are spry into old age and whose risk of dying is the same no matter how old they are.

Harvard Medical School has followed 824 subjects - men and women, some rich, some poor - from their teens to old age. Harvard's George Vaillant now uses these studies - the most complete ever done anywhere in the world - and the subjects' individual histories to illustrate the factors involved in reaching a happy, healthy old age. He explains precisely why some people turn out to be more resilient than others, the complicated effects of marriage and divorce, negative personality changes, and how to live a more fulfilling, satisfying and rewarding life in the later years.

The Color of Everything is a thrilling tale of risk and adventure, written by a man who has done it all: he’s stood at the top of the world, climbed imposing mountain faces alone in the dark and become the only American to summit an 8,000-meter peak in winter. But it is also the story of a tumultuous life--a stirring, lyrical memoir that captures the profound musings of a brilliant and unquiet mind grappling with the meaning of success, the cost of fame, addiction, and whether it is possible to outrun your demons.

From University of Washington professor Chantel Prat comes The Neuroscience of You, a rollicking adventure into the human brain that reveals the surprising truth about neuroscience, shifting our focus from what’s average to an understanding of how every brain is different, exactly why our quirks are important, and what this means for each of us.

Constantly striving to achieve one goal after another and investing more in our careers than in our actual lives have left many of us feeling overwhelmed, overworked, and disconnected from who we are. Take Sheri Riley. She rose to the top of her field and was miserable. Sure, she was successful, but she couldn't buy peace, and material possessions didn't bring her clarity. Now an empowerment speaker and life strategist, Sheri Riley shares the secret that helped her regain her sense of self and purpose.

Diana Helmuth, thirty-three, is skeptical of organized religion. She is also skeptical of disorganized religion. But, more than anything, she is tired of God being dead. So, she decides to try on the fastest-growing, self-directed faith in America: Witchcraft. The result is 366 days of observation, trial, error, wit, and back spasms. Witches today are often presented as confident and finished, proud and powerful. Diana is eager to join them. She wants to follow all the rules, memorize all the incantations, and read all the liturgy. But there’s one glaring problem.

A compassionate and captivating examination of evolving attitudes toward mental illness throughout history and the fight to end the stigma. For centuries, scientists and society cast moral judgments on anyone deemed mentally ill, confining many to asylums. In Nobody’s Normal, anthropologist Roy Richard Grinker chronicles the progress and setbacks in the struggle against mental-illness stigma - from the 18th century, through America’s major wars, and into today’s high-tech economy.

When Kelsey Patel was struck by searing back pain in her 20s, she had no idea that repressed emotions could manifest as intense anxiety and physical pain. Her healing came from acknowledging the disharmony in her life, which led Patel to seek out the self-care techniques and practices that helped get her body, health, and emotions back into alignment: Reiki, Emotional Freedom Technique, yoga, and other practices.

Fatima Ali won the hearts of viewers as the Fan Favorite of Bravo’s Top Chef in season fifteen. Twenty-nine years old, she was a dynamic, boundary-breaking chef and a bright new voice for change in the food world. After the taping wrapped and before the show aired, Fati was diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer. Not one to ever slow down or admit defeat, the star chef vowed to spend her final year traveling the world, eating delicious food, and making memories with her loved ones. But when her condition abruptly worsened, her plans were sidelined.

There's no such thing as an inevitable midlife crisis, Barbara Bradley Hagerty writes in this provocative, hopeful book. It's a myth, an illusion. New scientific research explodes the fable that midlife is a time when things start to go downhill for everybody. In fact, midlife can be a great new adventure, when you can embrace fresh possibilities, purposes, and pleasures. In Life Reimagined, Hagerty explains that midlife is about renewal.

In The Serendipity Mindset, Christian Busch explains that serendipity isn't about luck in the sense of simple randomness. It's about seeing links that others don't, combining these observations in unexpected and strategic ways, and learning how to detect the moments when apparently random or unconnected ideas merge to form new opportunities. Busch explores serendipity from a rational and scientific perspective and argues that there are identifiable approaches we can use to foster the conditions to let serendipity grow.

Getting It Done When You're Depressed offers 50 strategies to break the cycle of inactivity that so often accompanies depression. These strategies are practical and easily applicable for anyone trying to lead a lifetime of productivity, regardless of your mood.