Here are the next ten books in my top 100 non-fiction books countdown. I have read all of these over the last nine years.
These ten titles cover a wide range of topics. Including creativity and flow, effortless achievement, system optimisation and authentic confidence. They also cover identity and healing, longevity and resilience, and prediction and human potential.
Feel free to check out the prior parts of the countdown first if you haven’t yet: 100-91, 90-81, and 80-71.
Here’s 70 to 61.
70. The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin
Goodreads.com star rating = 4.01/5
Legendary music producer Rick Rubin presents creativity as a way of being, not just making art. He emphasises organic, non-linear creative processes that need patience, trust, and surrender to uncertainty rather than forcing outcomes.
What makes it special: It treats creativity as accessible to everyone. The focus is on mindset and presence over technical skills. It incorporates wisdom from decades of working with top artists.
Perfect for: Artists, musicians, creatives of all kinds, anyone feeling blocked, and people interested in mindfulness and personal growth.
Key takeaway: Creativity is not a talent reserved for artists. It is a natural way of being accessible to everyone. It emerges organically when you approach life with openness, presence, and trust in the process. Do not force outcomes or seek external validation.
69. Effortless: Make It Easier to Do What Matters Most by Greg McKeown
Goodreads.com star rating = 4.04/5
McKeown shows how to make success feel natural and sustainable by working smarter, not harder. He advocates for simplifying complex tasks, building routines that need less willpower, and aligning work with natural energy rhythms.
What makes it special: It challenges the “hard work equals success” myth. The book offers practical strategies. These strategies reduce friction and psychological burden while achieving better results.
Perfect for: Busy professionals, perfectionists, overachievers, and anyone struggling with motivation or seeking work-life balance.
Key takeaway: “Effortless” doesn’t mean lazy or without any work at all. Instead, it’s about being strategic in how you apply your energy so you can sustain high performance without burning out. Stop glorifying struggle and instead ask: “What if this could be easy?” This mindset shift helps you find simpler, more sustainable ways to achieve what truly matters.
68. The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right by Atul Gawande
Goodreads.com star rating = 4.04/5
Gawande reveals how simple checklists dramatically improve performance in complex, high-stakes situations. From operating rooms to cockpits, he shows how checklists manage cognitive load and prevent critical errors.
What makes it special: This demonstrates how basic tools can profoundly impact safety and quality. It includes compelling real-world examples from medicine and aviation.
Perfect for: Healthcare professionals, managers, project teams, entrepreneurs, and anyone in high-stakes fields where mistakes have serious consequences.
Key takeaway: Using checklists can dramatically reduce errors and improve performance, even among highly skilled professionals dealing with complex tasks. In our complex world, we need to embrace tools that help us manage complexity. We can’t pretend to handle everything through individual brilliance alone. Checklists represent a simple but powerful way to improve reliability and save lives across many fields.
67. The Confidence Gap: From Fear to Freedom by Russ Harris
Goodreads star rating = 4.05/5
Harris argues that real confidence comes from taking action despite fear, not from feeling fearless. Using acceptance and commitment therapy principles, he shows how to build confidence through values-driven action and self-compassion.
What makes it special: It reframes confidence as a skill you can develop rather than a fixed trait. It emphasises mindfulness and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) skills for helping people to become more confident in their lives.
Perfect for: People who avoid action due to fear, professionals with imposter syndrome, and anyone dealing with anxiety or perfectionism.
Key takeaway: Waiting to feel confident before taking action is a trap. This trap prevents us from living the life we want. Stop waiting for confidence to show up and start taking small, values-driven actions. Confidence often follows action, not the other way around.
66. The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing Up Gay in a Straight Man’s World by Alan Downs
Goodreads.com star rating = 4.06/5
Downs explores the hidden shame many gay men carry from growing up in a hetero-normative world. This shame drives compensatory behaviours like perfectionism and achievement-seeking. He offers a path toward authentic self-acceptance.
What makes it special: It offers an honest, compassionate examination of internalised shame and its effects. It also provides practical guidance for healing and building genuine self-worth.
Perfect for: Gay men struggling with shame. Mental health professionals and LGBTQIA+ allies will find it beneficial. It’s also suitable for anyone on a journey of personal growth and authenticity.
Key takeaway: Many gay men experience a deep psychological wound. It is often hidden. This wound comes from growing up in a hetero-normative society. The society teaches them that their authentic selves are unacceptable. This leads to lifelong patterns of shame, perfectionism, and emotional numbing. Healing requires recognising these patterns. It involves understanding their origins. The process includes doing the difficult work of building genuine self-acceptance. This is instead of continuing to seek validation through external achievements or approval from others.
65. The Identity Trap: A Story of Ideas and Power in Our Time by Yascha Mounk
Goodreads.com star rating = 4.06/5
Mounk examines how politics has shifted from class-based to identity-based divisions. He explores the paradox between celebrating individualism and grouping people into fixed identity categories. He argues for balancing identity affirmation with social cohesion.
What makes it special: Thoughtful analysis of contemporary political and social dynamics. It avoids partisan talking points. It addresses real challenges of identity politics.
Perfect for: Students of politics and sociology, policymakers, activists, journalists, and general readers curious about culture wars and social fragmentation.
Key takeaway: Well-intentioned identity-focused approaches to social justice have become counterproductive. They create political and personal traps. These traps ultimately undermine the goal of achieving equality and justice. The path to justice lies not in abandoning liberal democratic principles. It lies in more fully realising them. We should keep free speech, individual dignity, and cross-cultural exchange.
64. Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma by Peter A. Levine and Ann Frederick
Goodreads.com star rating = 4.07/5
Levine presents trauma as trapped energy in the body rather than just a mental condition. He shows how somatic approaches can help finish interrupted fight, flight, or freeze responses, allowing natural healing to occur.
What makes it special: This approach to trauma healing is revolutionary. It engages the body’s wisdom. It offers hope for those whom traditional talk therapy hasn’t fully helped.
Perfect for: Trauma survivors and therapists. It also suits people who do bodywork. Anyone interested in the mind-body connection could find it useful.
Key takeaway: Trauma is fundamentally a physiological disorder, not just a psychological one. Healing occurs through the body’s natural ability to finish its interrupted stress response rather than through talking therapy alone. Healing trauma requires working with the body’s wisdom. It is important to complete the natural stress cycle, which Levine says was interrupted during the original traumatic event.
63. The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who’ve Lived the Longest by Dan Buettner
Goodreads.com star rating = 4.07/5
Buettner identifies regions where people live exceptionally long, healthy lives. He reveals their common practices, including natural movement and a sense of purpose. Other practices are stress management and plant-based diets. They also include moderate alcohol consumption, strong communities, family priority, and spiritual engagement.
What makes it special: Evidence-based longevity secrets from real-world populations, offering practical lifestyle guidance backed by demographic research.
Perfect for: Health enthusiasts, caregivers, families, community leaders, public health professionals, and anyone interested in ageing well.
Key takeaway: The world’s longest-lived populations share specific lifestyle patterns. Anyone can adopt these patterns to increase their lifespan. These habits can also improve their quality of life. Longevity isn’t primarily about genetics. Genetics accounts for only about 20% of lifespan. It’s about creating an environment and lifestyle that naturally promotes health and longevity.
62. Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction by Phillip E. Tetlock and Dan Gardner
Goodreads.com star rating = 4.08/5
Tetlock reveals what makes some people exceptionally good at predicting future events. Superforecasters are curious, open-minded, think in probabilities, regularly update their views, and break complex problems into manageable parts.
What makes it special: It shows that forecasting is a learnable skill. It is not an innate talent. The book offers practical techniques for improving prediction accuracy in any field.
Perfect for: Strategy professionals, data scientists, critical thinkers, teams making decisions under uncertainty, and students of psychology or economics.
Key takeaway: Some people are remarkably better at predicting future events than others. These superforecasters use specific thinking techniques. These techniques can be learned and applied by anyone to make better predictions and decisions. In an uncertain world, we can still make significantly better predictions by adopting the disciplined thinking habits of superforecasters.
61. What Doesn’t Kill Us: How Freezing Water, Extreme Altitude, and Environmental Conditioning Will Renew Our Lost Evolutionary Strength by Scott Carney
Goodreads.com star rating = 4.09/5
Carney explores how modern comfort has weakened our evolutionary resilience and how we can reclaim ancient abilities through environmental conditioning. He investigates cold exposure, breathwork, and extreme challenges that build physiological and mental strength.
What makes it special: This is a science-backed exploration of human potential. It challenges assumptions about our physical and mental limits. It includes practical applications for building resilience.
Perfect for: Biohackers, health optimisers, adventure seekers, wellness practitioners, and fans of self-experimentation backed by research.
Key takeaway: Modern humans have become dangerously disconnected from environmental stressors. Our bodies evolved to handle these stressors. Deliberately reintroducing controlled stressors, particularly cold exposure, can dramatically improve our health, resilience, and performance. Avoiding all stress and discomfort doesn’t make us healthier – it makes us fragile.
Stay tuned for books 60-51 next week…
Dr Damon Ashworth
Clinical Psychologist
Damon Ashworth Psychology 
You must be logged in to post a comment.