Books to Help Make Giving Thanks a Habit

By Claire Handscombe
 
Thanksgiving is a chance to reflect on the good things we have and so often take for granted. Books are one thing we at The Writer's Center are thankful for—and they can, in turn, help us to cultivate an attitude of gratefulness. Here are some books that can help us keep a thankful mindset, not just on the fourth Thursday of November, but year round.

365 Thank Yous: The Year a Simple Act of Daily Gratitude Changed My Life, by John Kralik

In his fifties, John Kralik found himself at a low ebb in his life—personally, professionally, and financially. When he received a kind note from an ex-girlfriend thanking him for a Christmas gift, it inspired him to set himself a challenge. Every day of the following year, he would send one handwritten thank you note. To loved ones, to doctors, to past associates, to handymen. Soon after he began, he found unexpected benefits beginning to flood into life: friendship, financial gain, inner peace. Kralik chronicles for us his adventure in gratitude and inspires us to wonder how our lives might change if we took thankfulness seriously.


101 Ways to Say Thank You: Notes of Gratitude for All Occasions, by Kelly Browne

While Kralik delivers the why of thank you notes, Kelly Browne tells us how. This etiquette classic has been renewed and updated for the digital age to help us all with our gratitude manners, whatever the occasion.

What Makes You Grateful? Voices From Around the World, by Anne O. Kubitsky

In October 2011, Anne O. Kubitsky embarked on a social experiment. She placed postcards in public places—coffee shops, libraries, post offices—asking "what makes you grateful?"—encouraging people to draw or write something and return them to her. This book is a heart-warming collection of tributes to the small and not-so-small things that bring us joy.



The Book of Awesome, by Neil Pasricha

In a series of short essays about life’s simple pleasures, Neil Pasricha reminds us of the joys to be found in such things as snow days and bubble wrap, the smell of rain and new bed sheets.

The Happiness Project, by Gretchen Rubin

The subtitle of this bestselling book is an excellent summary of its content: “Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun.” Gratitude is among the habits that the author chose to pursue with a daily one-sentence journal, “a place to record the fleeting moments that make life sweet but that so easily vanish from memory.” What if Thanksgiving became not just a once-a-year- event, but a life-changing habit?