Books That Have Changed the Way I Think About Relationships, Life, Right and Wrong, and My Place in the Universe...and That Might Change Your Thinking, Too

It was this book that started it all for me:

Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community by Robert Putnam

I read Bowling Alone when I was working for the United States Census Bureau, knocking on strangers' doors, asking my fellow citizens very personal questions about their finances and their mental health and their jobs and their food security and their addictions so that the president and Congress and all those who work for the government can make good decisions based on good information to create policies and programs in order to make America a better place to live.

Bowling Alone set me off on a path, a path I'm still on today, to find ways of making friends, bridging differences, and encouraging community in the world.

Bowling Alone led me to read other excellent books that continued me on that path, including:

Civility by Stephen L. Carter, a book that focuses on the ways we have come to treat people with less respect than we did in the past, and ways we can do better;

The World's Poorest President Speaks Out by Nakagawa Gaku, a picture book of the speech of the president of Uruguay in which he questions our deep belief in consumption and asks questions we should all be asking about the future direction for the world;

The Other Side by Jacqueline Woodson, a picture book of a first contact between two children from two cultures whose families taught the children to regard the other culture with trepidation;

Each Kindness by Jacqueline Woodson, a picture book of a poor child in a new school who is treated cruelly by the other children;

The Common Good by Robert Reich, a book that suggests we might look once again to the common good as our focus when we seek to solve problems;

Germinal by Émile Zola, a fiction classic about the attempt of a community of coal miners to make a living wage by striking, and the devastating results of that strike; 

Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do? by Michael J. Sandel, a book based on Sandel's popular course at Harvard, a book in which the author explores the idea of what is just and what is not;

How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen by David Brooks, a book in which Brooks provides concrete ways of connecting to others;

I Think You're Wrong, But I'm Listening: A Guide to Grace-Filled Political Conversations by Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers, a book by two women who are on wildly different sides of the political spectrum, but who have found ways to connect to others with whom they disagree;

Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt by Arthur C. Brooks, my most-liked book review ever, in which I expound upon this theme of ways to get out of this mess we are in.

And, for those of us who might need to start at the very beginning of this process of improving our relationships, there's this little picture book:

We Don't Eat Our Classmates by Ryan T. Higgins. 

Do you have suggestions for me?

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Each Tuesday That Artsy Reader Girl assigns a topic and then post her top ten list that fits that topic. You’re more than welcome to join her and create your own top ten (or 2, 5, 20, etc.) list as well. Feel free to put a unique spin on the topic to make it work for you! Please link back to That Artsy Reader Girl in your own post so that others know where to find more information.