Today’s issue is a little different.

I am sharing a short essay I wrote sometime last year, that has yet to see formal publication. It comes in anticipation of my least favorite day of the year, July 3, the anniversary of my father’s death. Like all things grief, the intensity of the day itself is unpredictable. Some years, I forget about it entirely. Other years, I fall into a funk around Father’s Day and stew there until Fourth of July celebrations end. Last year, a wave of grief hit me in a coffee shop in Milwaukee, followed by a rush of excitement over the circumstances that brought me to Wisconsin in the first place.

This year…well…jury’s still out. It’s been six weeks since my knee surgery, and in between the stretches where it feels like a bulldozer is running over my psyche, the liminal space in between emotion and response has forced radical acceptance of whatever or whoever shows up.

The who of all this? My goodness. Both personally and professionally, a few extraordinary beings arrived without fanfare. When they came into my awareness, my first thought was: There you are. And a beat later: But why did you show up now?

There’s a sense of being out of time and place, of both the familiar and unfamiliar, of tying up loose ends while unraveling a new story. There is the distinct knowing that everything is linked, without any conscious understanding of how. There is a sort of energetic collision, a string of connection transforming from invisible to undeniable. An unspoken agreement, a heartbridge to another realm. Steady and beating, stirring up all that is unknown.

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Recently, while reading a memoir by a dear friend, Y-Dang Troeung, I turned the page and was greeted by a demure, black and white photo. I brought my right thumb and forefinger together and placed my fingers on her body, attempting to zoom in on the static, paper image. It was only after a few attempts that I realized what I was doing, and I burst into tears. 

On November 27, 2022, at the age of 42, Y-Dang died of pancreatic cancer—the same disease that took my father when I was fifteen. In the photo, Y-Dang is standing in front of “The Killing Tree” at Choeung Ek in Cambodia, where Cambodian infants were killed at the hands of Pol Pot and his genocidal regime in the 1970s. Her right side body faces the camera, small enough to fit within the center third of the photo, barely distinguishable from the bridge she stands on and the tree still caked with dried blood. 

A Canadian national bestseller, her book Landbridge: Life In Fragments, depicts snippets of Y-Dang’s life as the literal poster child for Cambodian refugees in Canada, all of it written during precious waking hours during the last year of her life. A career academic specializing in refugee studies, the work is all at once an elegy to the freedom and imprisonment of political asylum, a reflection of the Cambodian genocide told through her family’s lens, and a series of love letters to her young son, Kai. 

As is with all art, we view it through the lens of our experience. I cannot read Y-Dang’s words without stirring the ghost of my father, a man who—other than a loose connection to the same general war (my father fought in Vietnam) and cancer of the same name—bears no ties to the woman in the photo. Yet it is through Y-Dang that I have been turned to face the dregs of grief, and through her that I have found fragmented answers to hanging questions about my father’s death.

Did he know what was happening? Was there pain? What kind of pain? What would he have said if he could speak?

I can’t say for sure what I was looking for when I tried to zoom into Y-Dang. It is something I do with digital photos of those who matter to me, in moments of loneliness. The act of bringing their face toward me is comforting, somehow, and seems to strengthen the invisible string that tethers us together. But something is lost in images of those who are gone. In death, that string releases, replaced by a nebula of energy that is no longer linear, but everywhere all at once. Not being able to zoom in, not being able to see the image clearly, is the ever present unease of living. 

In the beginning of Y-Dang’s book, she quotes Michael Allaby’s definition of land bridge: a connection between two land masses, especially continents, that allows the migration of plants and animals from one land mass to the other. 

I would like to add a new word to the lexicon: heartbridge. A connection between two souls, seemingly distant from one another, who provide a path of release and understanding both to each other, and for those who stay behind. 

The act of reading—specifically sitting down with a physical book or Kindle—tells me a person has the ability to focus, slow down, and live life with intention and curiosity. Whether they read fiction or nonfiction, sci-fi or biographies, they are likely to contribute to conversations and process ideas that may not be in line with their own beliefs. In short, it demonstrates that they are open and capable of growth.

Books are also the fastest and cheapest way to change your life. I have little patience for people who can’t solve their own problems when there are literal libraries filled with free resources to address your exact issue.

This year’s roundup of books is very much focused on troubleshooting existence. From breathing to protein to getting what you want from others, here are the 10 books I read that will make for a happier life.

Landbridge: A Life in Fragments by Y-Dang Troeung

This is the best, most impactful book I read all year. It earned rare display status in my living room, and I tear up just looking at it. It’s also written by a friend who died a year ago this week, so I’m feeling especially tender.

Though you can get creative and get this book in the US by following my link, it’s currently only available in Canada. The US release date is set for later this year.

“In 1980, Y-Dang Troeung and her family were among the last of the 60,000 refugees from Cambodia that then-Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau pledged to relocate to Canada. As the final arrivals, their landing was widely documented in newspapers, with photographs of the PM shaking Y-Dang’s father’s hand, reaching out to pat baby Y-Dang’s head. Forty years later, in her brilliant, astonishing book, Y-Dang returns to this moment, and to many others before and after, to explore the tension between that public narrative of happy ‘arrival,’ and the multiple, often hidden truths of what happened to the people in her family.

In precise, beautiful prose accompanied by moving black-and-white visuals, Y-Dang weaves back and forth in time to tell stories about her parents and two brothers who lived through the Cambodian genocide, about the lives of her grandparents and extended family, about her own childhood in the refugee camps and in rural Ontario, and eventually about her young son’s illness and her own diagnosis with a terminal disease. Through it all, Y-Dang looks with bracing clarity at refugee existence, refusal of gratitude, becoming a scholar, and love.”

Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor

In the realm of books that will solve most of your problems, Breath is #1 on the list. Told with a journalistic flair that keeps you reading, Breath explores the most basic, common thing humans do—breathing—and explains exactly why you’re doing it wrong, how it’s creating your physical problems, and how to fix it with a quick trip to the drug store.

The Medium is the Massage by Marshall McLuhan

It’s been six months since I stopped consuming any news or current events, and I cannot overemphasize how much this choice has positively affected my life. McLuhan’s book is a meta, visual explanation of why this occured, showing how we are unconsciously influenced by media through brilliant illustration.

And lest you think this book falls into the camp of “dangerous alternative media,” know that it was first published in 1967, establishing it as one of the rare works that stands the test of time.

Forever Strong: A New Science Based Strategy for Aging Well by Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

Much of my year has been focused on understanding how nutrition affects mental and physical performance. I’ve ditched dozens of foods I thought were helping but turned out to be hurting—oats, kale, and seed oils to name a few—and am focusing on a more primal, stripped back diet that leans more into red meat.

An easy read with a focus on unraveling the false narrative surrounding meat, Lyon touches on the history of our bogus food pyramid, why so many people are physcially weak and overweight, and how more muscle means better health and longevity.

Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall

I picked this book off a friend’s shelf when I was too jetlagged to function, and it changed my entire perspective on what my body was capable of doing.

In less than three months, I went from someone who hated running and thought I wasn’t “built” for it to someone who is excited to spend an hour in the woods, running six miles with 2000 feet of elevation.

Plus, it’s a damn good story that will speak to anyone with any inclination towards physical activity.

Walking in Wonder: Eternal Wisdon for a Modern World by John O’Donohue

I like to read philosophy or poetry before bed, and John O’Donohue is the perfect lullaby.

“Widley recognized as one of the most charismatic and inspirational enduring voices on the subjects of spirituality and Celtic mysticism, these timeless exchanges span a number of years and explore themes such as imagination, landscape, the medieval mystic Meister Eckhart, aging, and death. Presented in O’Donohue’s inimitable lyrical style, and filled with rich insights that will feed the ‘unprecedented spiritual hunger’ he observed in modern society, Walking in Wonder is a welcome tribute to a much-loved author whose work still touches the lives of millions around the world.”

The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture by Gabor Mate

Read this book. Just do it. Listen to it on audiobook if that’s what you need to do. Make it the only book you read if you only choose one.

“Over four decades of clinical experience, Maté has come to recognize the prevailing understanding of “normal” as false, neglecting the roles that trauma and stress, and the pressures of modern-day living, exert on our bodies and our minds at the expense of good health. For all our expertise and technological sophistication, Western medicine often fails to treat the whole person, ignoring how today’s culture stresses the body, burdens the immune system, and undermines emotional balance. Now Maté brings his perspective to the great untangling of common myths about what makes us sick, connects the dots between the maladies of individuals and the declining soundness of society—and offers a compassionate guide for health and healing.”

Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche by Ethan Watters

If you’re a regular reader of HIAS, you’ll recognize this book from several of this year’s issues. This book should be required reading for anyone in the mental health field, becuase it’s going to force you to re-evaluate what you think mental illness is.

A Walk in the Physical: Understanding the Human Experience Within the Larger Spiritual Context by Christian Sundberg

By far the most out-there reccomendation on this list, A Walk in the Physical is the account of a man who was born with the spiritual veil “half open.” He remembers life before life, and attempts to explain what happens to souls before we come into human form—and after we leave through death.

Though the writing isn’t going to win any awards, it’s worth reading simply for the premise. Whether you belive what he’s saying or not, its sure to make you think.

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

“Why are you reading Dale Carnegie? He was old when I was your age.”

This is what said to me when she saw this book on my coffee table, indicating just low long this book has been around. Classics are classics for good reason, though, and there are plenty of nuggets in Carnegie’s book that are still relevant today.

The trick I use the most: Using people’s name to get what I want.

When you’re interacting with people, whether it’s a cashier or someone you know personally, play around with saying their name when making a request or giving a complement. We are conditioned to respond to our name, and assuming the tone is in kind, you’ll be shocked at how much easier it is to get people to help or respond to you.