BY SANDRA GUY

Predictions for a Fall double whammy of a combined flu and coronavirus upsurge underscore October’s importance as Health Literacy Month.

What better time to cozy up with a good book? Here are 10 must-reads to keep health top-of-mind, incorporating recommendations from psychologists, brain researchers and Yale, Harvard and Columbia university professors.

• The Stoic Challenge, by William B. Irvine. Published by W.W. Norton & Company. The author and philosopher leverages centuries-old wisdom to show how to flip disappointments into opportunities, and gets a thumbs-up from Yale psychology professor Laurie Santos in Yale News.

After all, uncertainty fuels anxiety. The coronavirus pandemic’s uncertainties — when to go to the gym, shop for groceries, spend distanced time with friends — can cause us to stay in an anxiety loop.

That’s a bad habit for two reasons, psychologists say: People who cope badly with uncertainty latch onto avoidance coping strategies, so they may avoid seeking medical care even if they develop a cough. And the more we build up our neural pathways in an anxious state, the more fortified they become.

So what better time to learn to adopt The Stoics’ approach? Thinking of challenges as tests of character can change our emotional response and prime us to overcome, rather than endure.

• Untamed, by Glennon Doyle. Published by The Dial Press. The Amazon review says it all, especially when women find themselves working as full-time employee, homemaker, schoolteacher, housekeeper and household scheduler:

“Soulful and uproarious, forceful and tender, Untamed is both an intimate memoir and a galvanizing wake-up call. It is the story of how one woman learned that a responsible mother is not one who slowly dies for her children, but one who shows them how to fully live. It is the story of navigating divorce, forming a new blended family, and discovering that the brokenness or wholeness of a family depends not on its structure but on each member’s ability to bring her full self to the table.”

• A self-published book, Let’s Be Calm: The Moral Health Handbook for Surviving and Thriving During a Pandemic, by Alex Bruce. The 60-page handbook offers wise quotes, meditation skills and ideas for staying hopeful.

 

• Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson. Published by Random House. Wilkerson won the National Book Critics Circle award in 2011 for her previous book, “The Warmth of Other Suns.”

In Caste, she looks at American history and the treatment of Blacks and finds what she calls an enduring, unseen and unmentioned caste system — not unlike those in India or Nazi Germany — that has yet to be fully confronted. It’s a necessary aspect of our nation’s health, she shows, to see how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human divisions.

• The Great Conversation: Nature and the Care of the Soul, by Belden C. Lane. Published by Oxford University Press.

Lane uses his own nature travels to illuminate the teachings of ancient philosophers and spiritual teachers, and to help us enter into a conversation about the world. “His night in a Missourian cave brings to mind the spiritual exercises of Ignatius of Loyola [and] the canyons of southern Utah elicit a response from the Chinese philosopher Laozi,” according to a Good Reads review.

The goal is to improve our own health, and the Earth’s, through a spiritually centered environmentalism.

• Wave by Sonali Deraniyagala. Published by Vintage Books.

The author, a London economist, writes in searing honesty about losing her family — her parents, husband and two young sons — when they were all swept away by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in Sri Lanka. They were vacationing there. Her intimate description of how she dealt with such unimaginable loss and grief embodies the ability and courage to move ahead.

• The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli. Published by Penguin Books.

How better to cope with a pandemic than learning how the experience of moving through time actually happens? The author uses Smurfs to explain physics diagrams, but he also quotes Homer’s epigraphs (i.e., “The journey is the thing” or “Life is Largely A Matter of Expectation”).

• Ballerina Body: Dancing and Eating Your Way to a Leaner, Stronger, and More Graceful You by Misty Copeland. Published by Grand Central Publishing.

Copeland, the first African-American female principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre, shows there’s no power in being scrawny, rail-thin and exhausted.

Instead, she’s the epitome of strength and grace as a strong, muscle-bound bundle of energy. She describes her change in eating habits, with an emphasis on healthy fats, alongside motivational insights, sensible recipes and tips on making good choices.

• Dolly Parton, Songteller: My Life in Lyrics. Published by Hodder & Stoughton.

Look no farther for inspiration. Parton goes behind the scenes, highlighted by a wealth of never-before-published photos, of her 60 years of songwriting. She includes candid and personal insights and memories.

• Mud Creek Medicine: The Life of Eula Hall and the Fight for Appalachia by Kiran Bhatraju. Published by Butler Book Publishing.

The author, a native of Eastern Kentucky, explores the life of Eula Hall, who persevered through corruption, domestic abuse and lack of a formal education to start a health clinic that served the poor. A bonus: Proceeds from book sales go to the Eula Hall Patient Assistance fund and the Eula Hall Scholarship Fund.