Best books ... chosen by Gretchen Rubin

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (Dover, $2.50). Benjamin Franklin’s delightful autobiography makes you feel as if you, too, could become an inventor, a diplomat, a writer, and a scientist—and found a nation and also a fire department—if you could just get properly organized. I based my Resolutions Chart on Franklin’s Virtues Chart, where he plotted the days of the week against 13 virtues he sought to cultivate.

Memories, Dreams, Reflections by Carl Jung (Vintage, $16). My favorite anecdote in Jung’s enthralling memoir is the story of how, at age 38, he began playing with blocks again, to recapture the enthusiasm he’d felt as an 11-year-old. What we enjoyed as children is a good clue to what we will enjoy as adults.

Operating Instructions by Anne Lamott (Anchor, $14). Lamott records the first year of her son’s life. One of my happiness mantras is, “The days are long, but the years are short,” and Lamott’s hilarious, thoughtful account of coping with both her new baby and her best friend’s death perfectly captures that paradox.

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Story of a Soul by St. Thérèse of Lisieux (Dover, $8). As a teenager, Thérèse Martin’s idea of a happiness project was to join some 20 nuns in a cloistered convent. Her desire was so strong that, when she wasn’t permitted to enter, because she was only 15, she petitioned Pope Leo XIII personally to ask permission. She died in 1897, at age 24, and initially just 2,000 copies of this book were printed. But this extraordinary spiritual memoir made her so beloved that two years later, her grave had to be constantly protected from pilgrims seeking relics.

Walden: Or, Life in the Woods by Henry David Thoreau (Dover, $2.50). Thoreau didn’t use the term I used for my own undertaking, of course, but his two-year experiment in living, when he lived alone in a small cabin near Walden Pond, is one of the most well-known happiness projects.

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer (Anchor, $14). Christopher McCandless’ decision to “walk into the wild” ended in his death, but Jon Krakauer’s account of McCandless’ strange voyage away from civilization, and what he sought in the Alaska wilderness, is utterly compelling.