We’ve all seen this film before. It’s December 30th, and tucked away in your desk drawer are all the diligent lists you’ve made, full of intention and hope for leading a better life than last year. Full of promise that this time it will be different – better reading, less smoking, more steps and sleep. Cut to January 2nd, you attempt to redeem your New Year’s blackout behaviour in Pawn Shop by diving right into your personal reading list – chock-full of non-fiction bricks by very serious men with very serious fonts. Though the dead of winter and the lumbering pop-psychology shelf in Eason’s can easily convince you there is something wrong with you, January is not the time to frontload the self-optimisation books. Non-fiction is hugely valuable and to each their own, of course, but one might learn much more about themselves when reading a title with much more merit.
There is a sure appeal to pop-psychology and self-improvement manuals. It becomes seductively easier to understand human behaviour, the most complex thing on the planet, when someone lays down some hard and fast rules for you to cling to. Such is the issue with many of these works. Through the oversimplification of human behaviour and repackaging of old ideas with new buzzwords, these books become capitalistic prey to the emotionally vulnerable. Does The Let Them Theory have some basic ideological merit? Sure. But there isn’t a whole lot that Mel Robbins can teach you for €23.99 that a period of introspection and some reduced screen time can’t.
The grip that The 48 Laws of Power has on the male population, in January especially, is undeniable. I do believe in endless curiosity, and am guilty of having read it. But sorry to say, Greene apologists, that limiting yourself to reading only cynical worldviews at a time you need enrichment is not the solution to what you’ve set out to heal. A highly interesting read, to be sure, almost to the point where one might be able to look past the fact that most of its laws boil down to “trust no one – especially your wife”. Read these works, but with a grain of salt, and for your own sake, not one after another in January.
There is an endless amount of gripping, beautiful, and meaningful non-fiction titles to be read in this world. Books that don’t insist on optimising yourself, hacking your life, or fixing your trauma, arguably more so, have the profound effect that the cookie-cutter self-help books claim to. In January, when one should be still hibernating rather than upheaving one’s life, there is a lot to be said for swapping TikTok-in-bed time with an endearing memoir or an introductory inquest into a niche topic that may inspire new interests. Titles such as this can introduce you to much more interesting concepts, ideas, and epiphanies than that of the endless self-improvement mill, which we all desperately try to affirm we boarded solely for ourselves. In the inspired words of actress Jemima Kirke, I think you think about yourself too much.
Instead, perhaps a small list of personal non-fiction favourites wouldn’t go too astray atop the others you’ve already made:
Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice
A manageable and accessible analysis based on the systematic exclusion of women from psychological research, Gilligan aims to exact the misperceptions in psychology born from theories being based mainly around men’s lives.
Amy Krouse Rosenthal, Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life
An endearingly heartbreaking and hilarious memoir of the late writer Amy Krouse Rosenthal. Particularly intriguing about this read is its unique use of the encyclopedia format.
Rashid I. Khaldi, The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine
An important and comprehensive history of the conflict in Palestine covering 1917 to 2017. Not an easy read, but definitely necessary, and offers a new perspective in addition to facts and context.
Virginie Despentes, King Kong Theory
Writer and filmmaker Virginie Despentes’ very dark but awfully funny feminist manifesto. A very candid chronicle of how the writer came to be the woman she is, and what that means to her. Not for the faint of heart.
Annie Ernaux, The Young Man
A short and reflective essay by the seminal Ernaux that touches on ageing, power, and desire through a narrative recounting a relationship the author had with a much younger student.
Resist the urge to buy a new you, and try to look in some less obvious places if it is a genuine improvement you seek. Books that don’t flatter and indeed make you uncomfortable are more useful than a 200-page confirmation bias where you’re simultaneously scorning your October situationship the whole time. You will survive January without another law of power or making a basic concept into a theory. Your investment portfolio won’t thank you, but your spirit sure will.
