By Lana Sterling
In our lives, we often face challenges and difficulties that can weaken our faith in ourselves and our abilities. However, each of us has an inner strength that can overcome all obstacles and help us achieve our goals. This selection includes books that will help you find and strengthen your fortitude.
1. Elizabeth Gilbert “Eat, Pray, Love”
In this book, the main character, Lisa, goes on a journey to Italy, India and Bali to find herself. In search of inner strength, Lisa immerses herself in exploring different aspects of life: tastes and pleasures in Italy, spiritual practices and reflections in India, and joy and balance in Bali. The journey becomes a spiritual quest for her, allowing her to find harmony and strength within herself and to rethink her values and priorities in life.
2. Hendrik Grun “Notes by Hendrik Grun from an Amsterdam Almshouse”
In his book, Hendrik Grun tells how several cheerful and witty residents of an old people’s home go on pleasure trips, fight against the arbitrariness of the director, support each other, become friends and fall in love. The author recalls his past and reflects on various aspects of life and death. To read this book is to feel the depth of existence, to believe in the greatness and resilience of the human spirit.
3. “Lauren Groff “Abbess
The plot of the book tells how seventeen-year-old Marie leaves her native France and finds herself in an unfamiliar England. By the will of Alienora d’Aquitaine, she becomes prioress of a convent on the verge of bankruptcy. Marie’s life is full of unexpected events and difficult trials. Will she be able to revive the abbey and turn it into a prosperous convent? She will have to rely on her faith, strength, hard work and perseverance.
4. Erich Maria Remarque “A Night in Lisbon”
The novel describes a touching and dramatic story in which the great power of love overcomes all obstacles, even in the face of mortal danger. It is late at night in Lisbon, and emigrants who have miraculously escaped Nazi Germany are waiting to board a ship for America. On this night, a man who has lost everything in his life, broken by the war, confesses his suffering to a random passer-by. This is the night when, over a bottle of cheap wine, a soul-healing story of passion, tenderness, cruelty, strange loyalty and uncommon courage is revealed.
5. Edith Eva Eger “Choice. On Freedom and the Inner Strength of Man”
One of the most powerful and moving books about war and the inner strength of man. In 1944, Edith Eger, a sixteen-year-old ballerina, was sent to Auschwitz with her family and faced unspeakable horrors. Drawing on her own personal experiences, she recounts her survival and journey to healing and helping others. “Choice is an amazing story of overcoming and healing, a testament to strength and inner freedom. This book allows us to see that the important lessons we learn in life and our attitude to the world around us are always dependent on the choices we make. It offers inspiration and perspective that can change lives and sustain generations of readers.
These books have the power to transform our outlook on life. They speak to our inner selves and show that even in life’s darkest moments there can be light and hope.