30 Most Inspirational Books to Read in Your Search for More Meaning

This blunt book tells it like it is, encouraging you to care less about most things so you can focus more on what is actually important to you. It will inspire you to stop sweating the small stuff, stop feeling sorry about your problems and start building resilience and satisfaction in your life.

When a ship sinks in the middle of the ocean, there is only one survivor: Pi, a 16-year-old boy who shelters on a lifeboat with a zebra, an orangutan, a hyena and a Bengal tiger. This incredible story of love and survival shows off the awe-inspiring forces of nature and the power of stories to help make sense of hardship.

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In this fable about following your dreams, an Andalusian shepherd boy named Santiago goes on a quest to discover a hidden treasure in the pyramids. But along the way, he finds a different treasure altogether as he learns more about life, wisdom and the importance of listening to your heart.

Everybody knows the story of Malala, the brave Pakistani girl who stood up against the Taliban for her right to an education and was shot in the head at point blank range on her school bus. Now the youngest Nobel Laureate ever, winning the recognition at only 17, she is an education activist and a champion for girls everywhere.

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This self-help book offers a straightforward framework for starting new habits and ending bad ones to change your life. Drawing on biology, psychology and neuroscience, this book will help catapult your progress forward to accomplish your goals.

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Part memoir, part self-help book, Glennon Doyle's Untamed is a manifesto for women to live their best and boldest life. She encourages you to leave people pleasing at the door, listen to your inner voice and practice the bravery to chase what you want, living a life untamed.

Marie Kondo is a name that has become synonymous with decluttering — and for good reason. Her trademark strategies of only keeping items that spark joy and thanking items for their service when you are done with them will inspire you to have a cleaner home and simpler life.

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A classic beloved by children and adults alike, The Little Prince is a French fable about a young prince's travels through space. Exploring themes of love, loss, loneliness and friendship, this book has been touching hearts for generations.

This former-First Lady's memoir describes her childhood with her working class family on the South Side of Chicago all the way through her years in the White House. Throughout, she handles challenges with poise, becoming a role model for achieving your dreams and maintaining grace under pressure.

Rumi was a 13th century Persian poet and Islamic Sufi mystic. Touching on love, faith, nature and freedom, his work is full of beautiful images and inspirational lines you are sure to take with you long after you close this volume of poetry.

A curmudgeonly old man terrorizes the neighborhood until a chatty young couple and their daughters move in next door and truly get to know him. This funny and heartwarming tale highlights the impact one life can have on countless people.

Siddartha is the philosophical story of a young man's search for wisdom during the time of the Buddha. He leaves his family to find his own path, trying meditation, asceticism, worldly indulgences, love and more to find the path to true enlightenment and happiness.

Unhappy in her marriage and her life, Elizabeth Gilbert divorces her husband and travels the world to find herself in this memoir. With humor and compassion, she searches for pleasure in Italy, spirituality in India and love in Bali, ultimately finding what she needs to start her life again.

Mary Oliver is a contemporary American poet inspired by the natural world and its links to the sacred. Her beautiful imagery and simple language offer moving meditations on love and nature, painting the world around us in a clearer light. This volume contains her favorite works from across her career.

This harrowing memoir of Frankl's time in a Nazi concentration camp is an intense but powerful read. Although it's a difficult subject, Frankl writes both psychologically and philosophically about finding meaning even in the face of unimaginable circumstances.

In 1845, Henry David Thoreau moved to live in a small shack he helped build on the shores of Lake Walden in Massachusetts. He lived there for two years in isolation, seeking to better understand the world, society and nature. Meditative and insightful, these are his observations.

Following the sudden loss of her husband while their daughter was in a coma, Joan Didion wrote this book about her grief. Raw and heart wrenching, it's a moving meditation on love, illness and family.

In this classic book of wisdom, Don Miguel Ruiz shares four key insights from his Mexican Toltec ancestors to stop self-limiting behaviors and improve your life.

How do you gracefully face your own death? And what makes life worth living? These are the questions neurosurgeon Paul Kalanithi must ask when he is diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer while he has a young son. This is a wrenching but profound look at life and death.

The Japanese concept of ikigai means purpose: It's what happens when what you love, what you’re good at, what you can make money doing, and what the world needs overlap. This volume delves into how to find it, and how it's brought long life and happiness to the Japanese village that has the highest percentage of 100-year-olds.