If you want to find inner peace and wisdom, you don't need to move to an ashram or monastery. Your life, just as it is, is the perfect place to be. Jack Kornfield, one of America's most respected Buddhist teachers, shares this and other key lessons gleaned from more than 40 years of committed study and practice.

The field of mind-body medicine is plagued by wild claims that mislead patients and instil false hope. But as scientists in a range of fields uncover solid evidence that our minds influence our bodies quite profoundly, there is now great promise, too. Jo Marchant attempts to use scientific research to find out if alternative medicines work; if our thoughts, beliefs and emotions influence our physical health; and if we can train our brains to heal our bodies.

Best-selling author Gretchen Rubin ( The Happiness Project and Happier at Home) explores habits - the invisible architecture of everyday life - and how they can make us more likely to be happy, healthy, productive, and creative. When we change our habits, we change our lives. Gretchen Rubin, author of the blockbuster New York Times best sellers The Happiness Project and Happier at Home, has helped millions of readers get happier.

You lead a busy life. You're constantly running between tasks, notebook in one hand, iPhone in the other. You've probably heard about the benefits of mindfulness and added 'start doing mindfulness' to your ever-growing to-do list, but frankly, who has time to meditate every day, chant in the lotus position, or read long books on finding inner calm? This brilliant handbook is packed with suggestions for ways to help you slow down, refocus, and practice a form of mindfulness that actually fits in with your hectic life.

Be calm, collected and in the moment. Too often, life just races by. You don’t fully experience what’s happening now, because you’re too busy thinking about what needs doing tomorrow, or distracted by what happened yesterday. And all the time your mind is chattering with commentary or judgement. Mindfulness allows you to experience the moment instead of just rushing through it. Being mindful opens you up to new ideas and new ways of doing things, reducing stress and increasing your enjoyment of life.

Legions of self-help authors rightly urge personal development as the key to happiness, but they typically fail to focus on its most important objective: hardiness. Though that which doesn't kill us can make us stronger, as Nietzsche tells us, few authors today offer any insight into just how to springboard from adversity to strength. It doesn't just happen automatically, and it takes practice. New scientific research suggests that resilience isn't something with which only a fortunate few of us have been born, but rather something we can all take specific action to develop.

It's easy to identify rage in people who lose their temper at traffic jams, unruly children, unresponsive coworkers, and unrealistic bosses. But we may not recognize more subtle manifestations of anger, such as being uncomfortable with loose ends, acting impatiently, or being overly critical. That is anger, too. And, as is so often the case, angry folks don't seem to realize that the behavior causing them problems at home or at work actually stems from unrecognized and unresolved pain and emotional injuries from the past. Is all this negative emotion inevitable, or are there choices about how to respond.

With over a quarter of a million copies sold, Mindfulness in Plain English is one of the most influential books in the burgeoning field of mindfulness and a timeless classic introduction to meditation. This is a book that people listen to, love, and share - a book that people talk about, write about, reflect on, and return to over and over again.

From Amy Morin, author of '13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do', the article that went viral and garnered million views in two weeks, comes the ultimate how-to guide to overcome the obstacles getting in the way of a fabulous, more fulfilling and happier life. Morin knows that of which she speaks. At just 26, while working as a psychologist and therapist, Morin's husband died suddenly. Inwardly reeling, she realised what pitfalls she didn't want to succumb to: self-pity, a sense of entitlement and resentment.

The Mind Illuminated is a comprehensive, accessible and - above all - effective book on meditation, providing a nuts-and-bolts stage-based system that helps all levels of meditators establish and deepen their practice. Providing step-by-step guidance for every stage of the meditation path, this uniquely comprehensive guide for a Western audience combines the wisdom from the teachings of the Buddha with the latest research in cognitive psychology and neuroscience. 

In this modern spiritual classic, the Tibetan meditation master Chögyam Trungpa highlights the commonest pitfall to which every aspirant on the spiritual path falls prey: what he calls spiritual materialism. The universal tendency, he shows, is to see spirituality as a process of self-improvement - the impulse to develop and refine the ego when the ego is, by nature, essentially empty. "The problem is that ego can convert anything to its own use," he said, "even spirituality."

In the same engaging style that has endeared him to listeners of Mindfulness in Plain English, Bhante Gunaratana delves deeply into each step of the Buddha's most profound teaching on bringing an end to suffering: the noble eightfold path. With generous and specific advice, Eight Mindful Steps to Happiness offers skillful ways to handle anger, to find right livelihood, and to cultivate loving-friendliness in relationships with parents, children, and partners, as well as tools to overcome all the mental hindrances that prevent happiness.

Most self-help books encourage you to think differently, to think yourself thin, imagine a richer self or visualize the perfect you. This is difficult, time consuming and often doesn’t work. Drawing on a dazzling array of scientific evidence, psychologist Richard Wiseman presents a radical new insight that turns conventional self-help on its head: simple physical actions represent the quickest, easiest and most powerful way to instantly change how you think and feel.

The Urban Monk, a New York Times best seller, reveals the secrets to finding an open heart, sharp mind, and grounded sense of well-being, even in the most demanding circumstances. Shojai's no-nonsense life mastery program brings together clear tools and exercises that can elevate your existence.

Cambridge geneticist Dr Giles Yeo has dedicated over 20 years studying how genes influence our eating habits. Instead of looking at how we have become obese, Gene Eating tackles the question of why some people eat more than others. The UK has the biggest waistlines in Western Europe and an enormous problem of other diet-related illnesses.