The 2023 Book Club Round-Up

I’m sharing a little earlier than usual, my annual book club round-up. Every year, I pull together the very best personal development books I have read, this is the 2023 article! It gives you a chance to see which ones you want to add to your to-read list and compare notes of those that you have already read. I thought I would share this list a little early (or late in 2023, depending on your perspective) to give you a chance to grab a title or two to read over the holiday season. So, you don’t need to hear from me anymore. Here is the 2023 Balance Collective Book Club Round-Up.

 

A Manual for Being Human by Dr Sophie Mort

The opening quote of the book, from another Clinical Psychologist David Smail, helps set the scene for the experience of reading this book; it is not one to just observe and ingest information – it’s one to take part and, at times, find uncomfortable. If you are prepared for that, then you will gain a lot of insight! 

 

“What caused people distress was not so much their own mistakes, inadequacies and illness as the powers and influences that bore down upon them from the world beyond their skin” David Smail

 

It has three easy-to-digest sections (How You Got Here, What’s Keeping You Here and How You Can Move Forward: Your New Toolbox with Go-To Techniques), which feel like you are being gently handheld through a program of impactful self-reflection. Whilst research and information are shared throughout the book, it is done in a way that is not intimidating and allows you to connect to your life experience.

 

Working my way through the book, I felt like I was reading it wearing two of my hats: ME (and reflecting on my life over the past four decades) and that of a parent. Whilst I unpicked my childhood, my attachment style, and the messages I have been given about mental health, gender, relationships and grief, I can also see the benefits of handing this to the younger members of our family. To open conversations so these reflections can occur earlier throughout their development and life transitions.

 

The Authority Gap by Mary Ann Sieghart 

This book will enrage you. It will make you frustrated, and angry, and wonder how we still exist in a world with such bias and struggle. However, by the end, you will feel hopeful, and it will make you change the way you interact with every person around you. It will impact your parenting, your friendships, and your leadership; it will (and must) alter your thought patterns and your communications. There really isn’t an industry or interaction that this book isn’t relevant for, or a bookshelf it doesn’t belong on. 

My notes on this book are substantial – and are beyond this blog alone. I expect you will see many factors discussed within this book appear in future articles. Simply, what is contained within these 308 pages (plus 30 pages of Bibliography) is the hard, cold evidence of what so many of my contemporaries and I have experienced over our lifetime. This book is the antidote to the message so many of us have been given, then we are “over-sensitive” or “just imagining it”.

 

I want to close with an impactful quote in this book and ask you to ponder on what this means for you. As a Manager, Leader, Parent, Teacher, Friend, and Partner. What will you start to do to close the authority gap that IS impacting your nearest and dearest, and even yourself?

 

“Culture does not make people. People make culture. If it is true that the full humanity of women is not our culture, then we can and must make it our culture”.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Writer

 

How to Keep House while drowning by KC Davis

I came across author and counsellor, KC Davis, via TikTok. Their open and honest conversation and advice around the weight of the mental, and physical, load, of keeping your home clean and tidy spoke to me. I grew up being told I was untidy as a teenager; my boyfriend (now husband) would tidy my university bedroom when he came to visit! Now, we joke about the “piles” around the house – they have order and direction for me, but they are visual clutter for those around them. Whilst I am seemingly organised and logical, the daily requirements for tidying and clutter regularly overwhelm me. As I firmly reach my middle forties, I have had enough of feeling shame and embarrassment about what is seemingly easy for others to do. So, when I saw the marketing for this book via KC’s social media channels, I knew I had to track it down.

 

 “How to Keep House While Drowning” is not a fashionable “clean-Tok” or Konmari type of approach, where you are shamed into categorising and creating order in a life that feels anything but. Like her socials, it’s an honest conversation about the realities of looking after your physical environment when it’s just another thing to add to an overwhelmingly long list.

This book works best if it’s read more than once, and utilised to create conversations not only when we feel like we are drowning, but to set up a functional house and care tasks that will help everyone create a home that works. 

 

I would love to know which books have stood out for you, this year. Share below, or pop along to Creating Careers to Enjoy. I am already drawing up the list of titles for the following year (you will see them shared on Facebook and LinkedIn), but I would love to hear of those that have really made a difference to your personal and professional life. 

 

Read the previous book reviews here.