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Depends on how old you are.

• Middle school: I really enjoyed this, this, and this, but I don't think I can read those books now (29) without cringing a little bit. Especially, Getting Things Done because I already know how to make to do list, but I still flip through all 3 books occastionally.
  
  
• High school: I really enjoyed this, this, and this, but if you're a well adjusted human and responsible adult, then I don't think you'll find a lot of helpful advice from these 6 books so far because it'll be pretty basic information.
  
  
• College: I really enjoyed this, this, and started doing Malcolm Gladwell books. The checklist book helped me get more organized and So Good They Can't Ignore You was helpful starting my career path.
  
• Graduate School: I really enjoyed this, this, and this. I already stopped with most "self help" books and reading more about how to manage my money or books that looked interesting like Stiff.
  
  
• Currently: I'm working on this, this, and this. Now I'm reading mostly for fun, but all three of these books are way out of my league and I have no idea what their talking about, but they're areas of my interest. History and AI.

Majorettes and spectators, prepare umbrellas! Piss storm incoming!

This bugaboo is an excellent case study to show what I like to call, in the most pretentious phrase I regularly utter, the epidemiology of shibboleths. Here's an extended entry from a book which belongs among every thoughtful language user's six indispensible things, Merriam-Webster's Consise Dictionary of English Usage:

>less, fewer Here is the rule as it is usually encountered: fewer refers to to number among things that are counted, and less refers to quantity or amount among things that are measured. This rule is simple enough and easy to follow. It only has one fault — it is not accurate for all usage. If we were to write the rule from observation of actual usage, it would be the same for fewer: fewer does refer to number among things that are counted. However, it would be different for less: less refers to quantity or amount among things that are measured and to number among things that are counted. Our amended rule describes the actual usage of the past thousand years or so.

>As far as we have been able to discover, the received rule originated in 1770 as a comment on less:

>>This Word is most commonly used in speaking of a Number; where I should think Fewer would do better. No Fewer than a Hundred appears to me not only more elegant than No less than a Hundred, but more strictly proper —Baker 1770

> Baker's remarks about fewer express clearly and modestly — "I should think," "appears to me" — his own taste and preference. It is instructive to compare Baker with one of the most recent college handbooks in our collection:

>>Fewer refers to quantities that can be counted individually. . . . Less is used for collective quantities that are not counted individually . . . and for abstract characteristics. —Trimmer & McCrimmon 1988

>Notice how Baker's preference has here been generalized and elevated to an absolute status, and his notice of contrary usage has been omitted. This approach is quite common in handbooks and schoolbooks; many pedagogues seem reluctant to share the often complicated facts about English with their students.

>How Baker's opinion came to be an inviolable rule, we do not know. But we do know that many people believe it is such. Simon 1980, for instance, calls the "less than 50,000" words he found in a book about Joseph Conrad a "whopping" error.

>The OED shows that less has been used of countables since the time of King Alfred the Great — he used it that way in oen of his own translations from Latin — more than a thousand years ago (in about 888). So essentially less has been used of countables in English for just about as long as there has been a written English language. After about 900 years Robert Baker opined that fewer might be more elegant and proper. Almost every usage writer since Baker has followed Baker's lead, and generations of English teachers have swelled the chorus. The result seems to be a fairly large number of people who now believe less used of countables to be wrong, though its standardness is easily demonstrated.

>In present-day written usage, less is as likely or more than likely than fewer to appear in a few common constructions. One of the most frequent is the less than construction where less is a pronoun. The countables in this construction are often distances, sums of money, units of time, and statistical enumerations, which are often thought of as amounts rather than numbers. Some examples:

>>The odometer showed less than ten thousand miles. —E. L. Doctorow, Loon Lake, 1979

>>. . . he had somewhat less than a million to his name when he went to Washington. —David Halberstam, Harper's, February 1971

>>I was never in Europe for less than fourteen months at a time. —James Thurber, letter, 18 July 1952

>>Her agency, less than 5 years old, is a smashing success. —Donald Robinson, Ladies' Home Journal, January 1971

>>. . . an allied people, today less than 50,000 in number. —W. B. Lockwood, A Panorama of Indo-European Languages, 1972

>>". . . I've known you less than twenty-four hours. . . ." —Agatha Christie, Why Didn't They Ask Evans?, 1934

>Fewer can be used in the same constructions, but it appears less often than less. It is sometimes used in such a way as to make one suspect that an editor rather than a writer is responsible for the fewer.

>>. . . has never gained fewer than 1,222 yards in a season. —Rick Telander, Sports Illustrated, 5 September 1984

>Some contemporary usage writers concede that this use of less is acceptable.

>The no less than construction noticed by Baker tends still to have less more often than fewer:

>>The class of 1974 . . . included no less than 71 new Democrats. —Tip O'Neill with William Novak, Man of the House, 1987

>>It it spoken by no less than 100 million in Bengal and bordering areas. —W. B. Lockwood, A Panorama of Indo-European Languages, 1972

>Less is the usual choice in the "twenty-five words or less" construction:

>>. . . readers are encouraged to keep their comments to 500 words or less. ——Change, January–February 1971

>>. . . of all the millions of families in the country, two out of three consist of only three persons or less. —Mark Abrams, London Calling, 9 October 1952

>>. . . and now know enough to create little fictions that in 30 seconds or less get right to the heart of desire itself. —Mark Crispin Miller, Johns Hopkins Magazine, Winter 1984

>Kilpatrick 1984 defends this less and the one just above. Less is also frequently used when it follows a number:

>>. . . almost $10 million less than for 1969. —Annual Report, Borg-Warner Corp., 1970

>>Many bulls fought in Madrid weight 100 kilos less. —Tex Maule, Sports Illustrated, 29 July 1968

>>. . . at thirty-three on my part, and few years less on yours. —Lord Byron, letter, 17 November 1821

>And of course it follows one:

>>. . . one less scholarship. —Les A. Schneider, letter to the editor, Change, September 1971

>>. . . one less reporter. —Don Cook, Saturday Review, 24 June 1978

>Less is also frequently used to modify ordinary plural count nouns. In present-day English this usage appears to be more common in speech (and reported speech) than it is in discursive writing. It is likely that some of the plural nouns in this example were thought of as uncountable amounts rather than numbers.

>>. . . Goldsmith took less pains than Pope . . . to create images of luxury in the reader's mind. —John Butt, English Literature in the Mid-Eighteenth Century, edited & completed by Geoffrey Carnall, 1979

>>. . . Americans pay less taxes than most of the inhabitants of developed countries. —Robert Lekachman, quoted in Center Magazine, January–February 1970

>>The less sodium you consume, the less drugs you're likely to need. —Jane E. Brody, New York Times, 11 July 1979

>>You have to make less mistakes. —Victor Temkin, quoted in New York Times, 4 May 1980

>>. . . lower rates . . . lazy days, and less crowds. —L. Dana Gatilin, Christian Science Monitor, 23 Oct. 1979

>>Less people exercise their right to vote. —William Scranton, quoted in Celebrity, October 1976

>Uses such as the above, even those where fewer might have been more elegant, have been standard for more than a millennium. If you are a native speaker, your use of less and fewer can reliably be guided by your ear. If you are not a native speaker, you will find that the simple rule with which we started is a safe guide, except for the constructions for which we have shown less* to be preferred.

TL;DR: Schoolmarmish divide is ahistorical, fewer is discrete, less can be either

(I read this whole entry to my dad once and he still grumbles about "12 items or less," though, so there you go. Some people would rather be curmudgeonly rulemeisters than historically sound.)

I love books I love books I love books.

My all time favorite book is The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver. I first read it in high school for my AP Lit class and I've probably read it a dozen more times since then. My copy is worn and dog eared and full of little notes in the margins and underlined phrases. It's gorgeous writing and the protagonist makes my chest ache and the story-telling is magical. It is the best book I've ever read and the best book I will ever read.

Another one of Barbara Kingsolver's books is also my favorite. It's her first one--called The Bean Trees.

A recent author I've found that I'm completely infatuated with is Alice Hoffman. My favorites of hers are The Museum of Extraordinary Things, Faithful, The Marriage of Opposites, and The Story Sisters. Her story telling is luminous, exquisite. She has a profound grasp on both understanding words and understanding people, and the two gifts together make magic.

The Extraordinary Journey of the Fakir Who Got Trapped In An Ikea Wardrobe is probably the smartest, funniest, charming, insightful, and heartwarming/terribly saddening novel I've ever, ever read. It's spectacular.

I'm also a huge fan of Liane Moriarty's work. Her books are so real and they're so funny, so beautiful, so good.

Also the Harry Potter series. At the beginning of the summer, right after I graduated college, I seriously sat down and reread all seven books in a week. It was great. I did nothing but read all day for seven days and it was perfect.

edit: forgot Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel! This book combines my favorite literary genre, magical realism, with apocalyptic fiction and OH MY GOD it's fantastic.

Im just gonna suggest my favorite french and french canadian books :

• A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali by Gil Courtemanche
  
  >Set in Kigali, Rwanda, the novel deals with a love affair between an elder Canadian expatriate and a young Rwandan, AIDS and the 1994 Rwandan Genocide.
  
  (Amazon link : https://www.amazon.com/Sunday-at-Pool-Kigali/dp/1400034345/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1475200692&sr=1-1&keywords=a+sunday+at+the+pool+in+kigali)
  
  Theres a movie named "A Sunday in Kigali" that was made about it but I prefer the book.
  
  
• Scorched by Wajdi Mouawad
  
  >Incendies follows the journey of twins Jeanne and Simon, as they attempt to unravel the mystery of their mother's life.[1] When Jeanne and Simon Marwan lose their mother, Nawal, they are instead left with a difficult mission that sends them on a journey to the Middle East in pursuit of their tangled roots and a long-lost brother.
  
  It's a very hard and crude book but it's also excellent. There's a good movie about it too. Won multiples prize, I think the movie is as good as the play.
  
  
  (Amazon link : https://www.amazon.com/Scorched-Revised-Wajdi-Mouawad/dp/0887549268)
  
  
• Dieu et nous seuls pouvons - Michel Folco (but its not translated :( so I guess you need to know french)
  
  >Pour échapper à la galère, Justinien Pibrac devient bourreau officiel du seigneur de Bellerocaille. Le jour de sa première exécution, après quelques maladresses rocambolesques, il parvient finalement à briser les os du condamné. Ainsi début la saga trépidante des Pibrac, qui deviendront de génération en génération les plus grands bourreaux de tous les temps.
  
  It's really really well written and it's filled with black humour. I dont want to spoil anything at all but it's a sure pick-up if you search a book in french.
  
  
• Empire of the Ants - Bernard Werber
  
  Science fiction book about a machine that allows communication between ants and human. I think it stands out from other science fiction book by having a more litteral approach to the philosophical themes it talks about.

Don't worry, your behavior is pretty common, measured to be around 25% of the population. (Depends on the age bracket.)

There's a bunch of books on the subject with "attachment" in the title. The basic idea is that people are wired to perceive different sensations as "love". For example, you seem to associate the feelings you experience being ignored or unwanted with romantic love. Interacting with men who meet all of your emotional needs then seem boring by comparison, because those relationships lack the triggers you associate with being in love.

A good therapist can help you figure this out, or you can start by just reading and see if you recognize your own behavior in the avoidant archetype. That isn't to say you have to start going out with men who are clingy, but rather learn to recognize and appreciate men who have mature and healthy communication styles.

Here's a couple of good links to get you started:

http://www.thebookoflife.org/how-we-choose-a-partner/

https://www.amazon.com/Attached-Science-Adult-Attachment-YouFind/dp/1585429139/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1493823185&sr=8-1&keywords=attachment+theory

Or they think that after you've put in all that energy, you'll overlook it. There is actually a psychological phenomenon behind this that I read about in this book: Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

Basically, once you've put in the energy to do something, you tend to try to convince yourself that you didn't waste all that energy in vain. It's the reason all those infomercials give you that "if you're not completely satisfied, send it back within 90 days" bullshit. There actually is science behind this. Here's how these girls use it to their advantage:

Once I met a girl on okcupid that was really cute in her profile. But, when we met in person she was twice as big as she was in her pics. I wish this was hyperbole. She told me that those pics were from when she was spending $500 a month on a personal trainer to look hot for her high school reunion. I'm the lucky guy that got to date her six months later.

Needless to say, when I first saw her my initial thought was, "I wish I had explosive diarrhea right now so I could get out of this". But, after the introduction, my thoughts changed to, "Well, I might as well make the best of a crappy situation and try to enjoy the meal". At the end of the night, "You know, let's say she hypothetically offered me a BJ with no strings attached, I'd be down". And, as I walked her back to her car, "There's no way I'm going on a second date with her. I mean... at least not unless she begs for it". It's easy to see how I'd be paying child support right now if she played her cards right.

Oh yes!! In a new post, I'll share all of the pages as a helpful guide, that's a great idea! It's actually a freebie on Amazon too right now, or anyone can message me and I'll happily send a PDF - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07BTGDC61

I believe the poster is referring to attachment theory, which is not gender-based but has more to do with early formative experiences.

I also "get attached easily" (anxious attachment, as it is called ).
And I'm hardly feminine and have plenty of options (and the experiences to verify it).

It actually means that you have to be MORE selective, to ensure you're not connecting with someone who is on the opposite side of the attachment equation ( someone who is "avoidant" ).

more info:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_theory

https://www.amazon.com/Attached-Science-Adult-Attachment-YouFind/dp/1585429139/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1468767337&sr=8-1&keywords=attached+amir

Oh, and here's a book recc if you want to learn more about what kind of men to go for and which ones to avoid if you're after a healthy, loving LTR.

Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment: http://www.amazon.com/Attached-Science-Adult-Attachment-YouFind/dp/1585429139

Honey, you sound like a highly anxious woman who keeps being attracted to highly avoidant men -- aka, the men who are LEAST likely to make you happy. Thus, why you keep pulled into bad deja-vu relationships with avoidant dudes over and over. Read the book. It will SERIOUSLY help you!

http://aloftyexistence.wordpress.com/2011/02/09/anxious-avoidant-trap/

Tennov's book "Love and Limerence" (she coined the term in 1979, btw, just sayin'), is pretty good. Amazon

I'm basing most of my assumptions on attachment theory and I'm fairly certain you and I have similar attachment styles.

They have recommendations in there for anxious attachments and I think specifically for us they recommend getting into self-help and using some form of mindfulness therapy to deal with anxiety. Inner Bonding and Vipassana meditation are what have helped me the most.

I really can't recommend therapy enough though. A good coach helps a lot if you can commit to 6-12 months.

My favorite nonfiction book is "Douze coups de théatre" by Michel Tremblay. I dont think its translated tough.

Other than that, I really liked "Empire of the Ants" and "Fondation" if you like science fiction. For historic settings, I liked "Incendies"/"Scorched".

Have you tried something like this?

https://smile.amazon.com/Body-Back-Trigger-Therapy-Massage/dp/B0006VJ6TO/ref=sr_1_5?keywords=back%2Bmassager&qid=1558719271&s=gateway&sr=8-5&th=1

It looks kinda weird, but my sis got one for her husband for xmas a while back and it's great for working out knots in your back.

Nautica Voyage

Some guy I used to know was obsessed with colognes and he said this got the best reaction from women of the 20+ he owned. $12 a bottle and I women do seem to love it.

https://www.amazon.com/Nautica-Voyage-Men-Toilette-Spray/dp/B000P22TIY

I'm in the middle of listening to it right now. Here's the link to the description if you scroll down. She does a great job of highlighting different qualities in a partner that should be red flags but our sometimes rose-tinted glasses let us ignore. There's more to it than that but it has been pretty entertaining.

"Needy" isn't a negative thing at least according to contemporary attachment theory. People having a strong desire for intimacy and closeness with a partner is not a negative thing, though in the US we tend to label it as "dependent", "clingy", or "needy." I would much rather end up with an anxious or a secure person than an avoidant type. Avoidants feel that intimacy threatens their independence. Yeah, thanks but no thanks.

I think it may be helpful for a lot of people who are dating to look into the attachment theory. I have been reading a book called Attached and I have learned bit from it thus far. Just a little mention that others may find of interest.

Travel photos are a great humblebrag.

"I'm wealthy and have a good and steady job" - crass bragging

<Picture of me in Thailand> - bragging, but we all agree to pretend it's not actually bragging

You can read more about it in The Elephant in the Brain

----

^^Bonus ^^round:

^^"I ^^read ^^lots ^^of ^^books" ^^- ^^crass ^^bragging

^^"You ^^should ^^read ^^this ^^book ^^I ^^like" ^^- ^^bragging ^^that ^^we ^^agree ^^to ^^pretend ^^isn't ^^bragging

I was thinking these (gold goes with a lot but also) they have them in white for cheaper! So I might grab the white pair. I tried them on a few months ago and they're great. My (now ex, sad face) boyfriend was with me but we were looking for shoes for him that day. He liked them.

Someone linked me this book: https://www.amazon.com/Unavailable-Fallback-Girl-Understanding-Emotionally-ebook/dp/B005WJGPZI

I read the free sample and it fit him very well. I bought the book and read it. It's almost as if he's read the book and using tactics from it. I swear he's even verbalized some of the things in there himself. Let's see, from the book, blowing hot, then blowing cold, reducing the relationship back from what it was and feeding you crumbs, vague far off prize that's dangled but not promised, when you try to end things you get managed, still trying to keep his foot in the door by remaining friends... He's done tons of things from the book that I can't think off the top of my head right now. And I didn't even date him that long. :(

Looking back, the first warning sign was him being overpoweringly attentive and affectionate out of proportion to how long we knew each other (blowing hot is what the book calls that) that I was swept off my feet and felt very uncomfortable but I liked it.

He was definitely not the opposite.

This has gotten the best reaction from women for me:

http://www.amazon.com/Nautica-Voyage-Men-Toilette-Spray/dp/B000P22TIY

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

Best book on dating ever. Even if it's really on marketing.

>
i have come to believe that much of our conduct in dating and in relationships is beyond rational/intentional decision-making; we are quite frequently unaware of our own preferences/desires, and so our desires do not follow a normal goal-oriented model.

I'm going to recommend two books I read recently:

• Attached, which is an explanation of adult attachment theory. This one I saw mentioned in another sub.
  
• Passion and Reason, which is a discussion of "emotional reason" or "emotional logic". My therapist suggested I read about this topic.
  
  Together with recent events, these two books have taught me a lot about myself.

I can absolutely 100% relate. My pattern was always hot and heavy for 1-2months max, and then they’d have some sort of epiphany that they actually weren’t as into me as they thought they were. I never understood it until I learned about attachment theory... and damn, did that explain a LOT. If you’re interested, this book made a huge difference for me.

I don't think you messed up. I just think you two are not compatible. Don't be so hard on yourself. You'll find someone who wants to communicate clearly and spend just as much time with you as you want to with them.

Have you read the book called Attached?

http://www.amazon.com/Attached-Science-Attachment-Find-Keep-Love-ebook/dp/B0049H9AVU

Looks interesting! Off to amazon.com I go...

This might be helpful too: http://www.amazon.com/Love-Limerence-The-Experience-Being/dp/0812862864

https://www.amazon.com/Attached-Science-Adult-Attachment-YouFind/dp/1585429139/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1522722243&sr=8-1&keywords=attached

You should read the book Attached. I don't recommend the Kindle edition, it has parts it expects you to write in the book.