Feel Good Club: The perfect guide to positivity, self-help and self-esteem. ‘A Must Have for your happiness toolkit’ Steven Bartlett

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razor-sharp quotes from some of history’s most inspiring female leaders, including Maya Angelou and Malala Yousafzai. I reach for this whenever I’m looking to feel re-energized in the fight for women’s issues. Being clear that the role of the Book Club is to help with wellbeing rather than crisis – and that it is a commercial, not a donor, experience – drove Samaritans to create the Feel Good Book Club brand identity.

Darieth Chisholm (TED talk: How revenge porn turns lives upside down If you’d like reasons to feel hopeful about the future We humans Creating a contract -- yes, a contract! -- could help you get what you want from your relationship As part of the design sprint, the team dug deeper into their audiences. Geraghty describes how they developed ‘user personas’ to sketch out the target audience. For the Feel Good Book Club, the initial persona was “a woman...35 plus, who’s interested in her own wellbeing, and potentially the wellbeing of her family and the other people around her”.Gold Diggers is a coming-of-age story with a big pinch of magical realism, humor, and heart.Neil Narayan is a second generation Indian American teenager growing up during the Bush era in the Atlanta suburbs. Neil’s parents want him to be successful, but all he really wants is Anita Dayal, the girl of his dreams who lives across the cul-de-sac. Then Neil discovers Anita is brewing a magical potion out of stolen gold that harnesses the ambition of the person who owned the gold. And Neil’s life is changed forever. If you want to learn about the history of the digital revolution, this book is for you. It takes readers on a tour through the stories of several innovators and creators of devices and developments that are very useful in our present-day lives. Traveling from the ideas of Ada Lovelace to Steve Jobs, this book shows us how they took a step beyond conventional thinking with their revolutionary ideas. Mara Mintzer (TED talk: How kids can help design cities) If you’d like to be closer to the people in your life Ian Firth (TED talk: Bridges should be beautiful) If you want to enjoy a book with your favorite little person Lately I have been reading books that I have never had time to get around to in the past, and that has included a few classics. There is something wonderfully reassuring about reading a classic novel which has stood the test of time and which reminds us of the universal nature of human fears, loves and desires. Their existence reminds me that this too shall pass.”

Elizabeth loves getting lost in a good book and shares how reading provides an escape from the troubled times we now face, she said:

This book helps you practice living with freedom from material possessions. It’s a very practical, actionable guide to decluttering your life and helping you trade chaos for clarity. But when she hurts herself and is unable to return to work at full capacity, she grows close with her replacement, Cameron, a young man newly arrived in town looking for his birth mother. Why it makes a good book club book: In a Holidaze is one of the best Christmas novels for book clubs who love to read romance books. This one maintains the feel of a romantic comedy and allows readers to discuss time travel in the context of the holiday season. It was the first new identity that Samaritans had launched in that way,” explains Gilbert. “But it’s also one that just completely makes sense. And because of the power of the Samaritans brand, we felt we could be quite confident in using it in an understated way. People know that they’re supporting Samaritans through it, absolutely. But also know that it’s about the experience first and foremost.” It is Tookie's too-muchness — her omnivorous appetites, her talent for storytelling and selling and embellishing — that makes her vulnerable and also ultimately saves her. Similarly, this brilliant novel thrives as a mish-mash of ghost story, mystery, comedy, picaresque, social commentary and book-lover's book, all of which is exactly enough. Through plumbing all these elements, Erdrich steers her complicated character towards a fitting conclusion, one that gives her a place in the vast world she loves without taking anything from her, one that allows her to make peace with herself and her ghost. (Elisabeth Cook)

When I was 17, I read this novel, which was the first book I ever read by Allende. Eva Luna is orphaned at an early age in a unidentified country in Latin America, and her story highlights some of the political issues post-World War II. It opened my eyes to magical realism and to the region as a whole. This book is all about having courage. Based on 12 years of research, it explains how vulnerability is both the core of difficult emotions like fear, grief and disappointment and the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, empathy, innovation and creativity. If we want to lead full lives, Brown encourages us to step into the arena in all aspects of our lives and dare greatly. She writes, “When we shut ourselves off from vulnerability, we distance ourselves from the experiences that bring purpose and meaning to our lives.” This is a short read, but this classic novel touches on creativity, learning, freedom from conformity, and flying, one of my favorite elements. I first read it when I was in my early 20s and then re-read it years later. It’s served as a touchtone to finding and flying through one’s own passions and paths.Whenever I want a good laugh, I browse this compilation of haikus by several of the Japanese masters. Descriptive phrases like “Morning breeze riffling the caterpillar’s hair” and “Year after year, a monkey’s face, on the monkey’s face” capture nature like I’ve never seen elsewhere. Their appreciation for the mundane and the way in which they find hilarity in the natural world makes for a book to be read out loud — whether you’re around the campfire or when you’re enjoying time with friends and family. Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness by Ingrid Fetell Lee (TED talk: Where joy hides and how to find it)