The author also dives into her family’s history: When Wang’s parents came to the United States in the late 1980s, they were something like, to paraphrase Wang, “accidental immigrants”-a move meant basically to be a “four-year vacation” became permanent when her academic father’s public solidarity with his peers in Tiananmen Square made China no longer a safe option. In each essay, the journalist and memoirist Connie Wang explores her complicated connection with her charismatic mother, Qing Li, and what she terms the many “oh my mother” moments that arise during their adventures-roughly akin to oh my God, the phrase is a “polite expletive,” a way to mark a tiny moment of revelation.

In some ways, this propelling memoir about a mother-daughter duo traveling around the world reads like a mash-up of Eat, Pray, Loveand The Amazing Race, but the differences are delightful. Oh My Mother! A Memoir in Nine Adventures, by Connie Wang Their stories of stress and triumph make the hard times feel less lonely, provide catharsis, and, in some cases, serve as a model for navigating the ebb and flow of our lives. If you’re in search of a boost or a push to change your life, the seven books below may help. But bibliotherapy, or healing through reading, has been shown to alleviate depression symptoms even undertaken informally, it may lead to mood shifts. And not every issue can be jump-started by literature sometimes there’s nothing else for it but professional help. Others will find solace in a title that blends laughter and pathos.

Some will need a book that will break them down before lifting them back up. Which genre works best for this kind of inspiration depends on the reader. And after I had a health setback, John Bingham’s The Courage to Start put me on a path to the Miami Half Marathon. When I got stuck in the muck on my dissertation, other academics discussing their methods freed me-Stuart Hall and Paddy Whannel’s The Popular Artswas a life raft. That occasion wasn’t the first time a book turned my life around. Less, Andrew Sean Greer’s hilarious and brilliant Pulitzer-winning novel, took the edge off reading about a middling writer’s middle-life-panic-induced trip on the eve of his 50th birthday made me think my own midlife crises of confidence might be survivable. My last personal slump was brought on by a succession of blows: a job change, bad luck and bad judgment in love, and a daunting milestone birthday.

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