Man's Search for Meaning

Why I'd hand it to you

Viktor Frankl was a psychiatrist who survived Auschwitz and other Nazi camps. The first half of this short book is his account of camp life, told without self-pity. He noticed that the prisoners who held on to a reason to live, someone waiting for them, work left to finish, often endured longer. The second half explains logotherapy, the approach to therapy he built on that idea. Be ready for the shift: part two is drier and more clinical, and some readers stop there. Part one alone is worth your time. It is a hard book about suffering, and somehow a hopeful one, and it belongs as much on a faith or psychology shelf as philosophy.

— Matt Jordan