11 must-read bestselling self-improvement books to kickstart your 2024

If you feel like effective communication is a lost art in today’s screen-saturated world, this book by professional communicator Leil Lowndes is for you. It’s packed with 92 well-researched and practical techniques to help you communicate with impact in all kinds of real-life situations, from business to romantic, and develop ease in social environments. Lowndes is also the author of two other bestsellers, How to Make Anyone Fall in Love with You and How to Feel Confident.

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Through her phenomenally popular online food site, RecipeTin Eats, Nagi Maehashi talks to millions of people a year who tell her about the food they love. Now, in her first cookbook, Maehashi brings us the ultimate curation of new and favourite RecipeTin Eats recipes—from comfort food to fast and easy eats for weeknights, Mexican favourites, hearty dinner salads, Asian soups and noodles, and special treats for festive occasions.

Featuring a photo and how-to video for every recipe (follow the QR code), readily available ingredients, Maehashi’s famously helpful notes, and Dozer, Australia's best-loved canine food tester, this is a kitchen-shelf must-have for the novice cook, the expert seeking to perfect technique (straight to the Beef Wellington!), and everyone in between.

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Want to learn new ways of approaching your understanding of the world? In this vibrant work, authors Apoorva Khare and Anna Lachowska explain the mathematics essential for appreciating our quantitative universe. They demonstrate how mathematics is a key tool in the creation and appreciation of art, music, and literature—not just science and technology—and how modular arithmetic is important in the modern world, for example in keeping our online transactions safe, and justifying the 12-tone scale commonly used in music.

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Getting enough sleep is an oft-neglected New Year's resolution, even though rest is key to improving physical and mental wellness. In this book, the first of its kind written by a scientific expert, neuroscience professor Matthew Walker explores 20 years of cutting-edge research to give readers a clear understanding of why sleep matters. Looking at creatures from across the animal kingdom as well as major human studies, Why We Sleep delves into everything from what really happens in our brains and bodies when we dream, to how caffeine and alcohol affect sleep and why our sleep patterns change across a lifetime.

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If you’re looking to break free from the corporate grind in 2024, this book could lead you to greener pastures. A perennial classic written by organic farming pioneer Eliot Coleman, it’s one of the most important farming books available. Gardeners working on a hectare or less will find this book especially useful, as it offers proof that small-scale market growers and serious home gardeners can live good lives close to the land and make a profit at the same time. The book is ideal for young farmers just getting started, or gardeners seeking to expand into a more productive enterprise.

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What am I? What is consciousness? What is the difference between past and future? Does the world presuppose a creator? Do we always act out of self-interest? This is a book about the big questions in life: knowledge, consciousness, fate, God, truth, goodness, justice. It's for anyone who believes there are big questions out there, but doesn't know how to approach them. Written by the author of the bestselling Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, Think sets out to explain what they are and why they are important. Ideal for those who want to learn how the basic techniques of thinking shape our existence.

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People think that when you want to change your life, you need to think big. But world-renowned habits expert James Clear has discovered another way. He believes that real change comes from the compound effect of hundreds of small decisions–doing two push-ups a day, waking up five minutes early, or holding a single short phone call. In this groundbreaking bestseller, Clear reveals exactly how these minuscule changes can grow into such life-altering outcomes. He uncovers a handful of simple life hacks (the forgotten art of Habit Stacking, the unexpected power of the Two Minute Rule, or the trick to entering the Goldilocks Zone), and delves into cutting-edge psychology and neuroscience to explain why they matter. Along the way, he tells inspiring stories of Olympic gold medalists, leading CEOs, and distinguished scientists who have used the science of tiny habits to stay productive, motivated, and happy.

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Interpersonal skills are needed in all spheres of life and can be learnt from a very young age. But why are some people more successful, popular and influential than others? This book is one of the first bestselling self-help books ever published, and teaches how to handle people without letting them feel manipulated, how to make people feel important without inspiring resentment, how win people over to your point of view without causing offence, and how to make a friend out of just about anyone. Using simple techniques and vivid examples, this is one read that will change the way you handle relationships and help you become a people's person.

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The word 'entrepreneur' is one of today’s favourite buzzwords, and any aspiring business owner has likely encountered an overwhelming number of so-called 'easy paths to success.' The truth is that building a real, profitable, sustainable business requires thousands of hours of commitment, grit, and hard work. It's no wonder more than half of new businesses close within six years of opening, and fewer than 5% will ever earn more than $1 million annually.

12 Months to $1 Million condenses the start-up phase into one fast-paced year. By cutting out the noise and providing a clear and proven plan, this road map will help even new entrepreneurs make decisions quickly, get their product up for sale, and launch it to a crowd that’s ready and waiting to buy.

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Over 99% of people who try to lose weight don't succeed. They don't get slender and they don't stay slender long term. The average dieter spends a significant amount of money and makes four or five new attempts each year, with almost no hope of success. Author Susan Peirce Thompson, Ph.D., suggests that there's something fishy going on here. We don't have an obesity problem; we have an obesity mystery–and she has the philosophy to solve it. Rooted in science and psychology, this book describes how the brain blocks weight loss, and provides a solution to the problem.

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Modern research is showing us that making even slight adjustments to the way we inhale and exhale can jump-start athletic performance; rejuvenate internal organs; halt snoring, asthma, and autoimmune disease; and even straighten scoliotic spines. None of this should be possible, and yet it is. Drawing on thousands of years of medical texts and recent cutting-edge studies in pulmonology, psychology, biochemistry, and human physiology, Breath turns the conventional wisdom of what we thought we knew about our most basic biological function on its head. You’ll never breathe the same again.

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