My father sent a letter in January. This is the sentence I’ve been trying to figure out how to write for four months, and it’s the one that sits at the center of why I care about gratitude as a practice rather than just a feeling. The letter is three pages. The handwriting is smaller than I remember. He writes about what happened, or tries to — there’s a lot of “I was struggling” and “I didn’t know how to say it then” — and he uses the phrase “make amends” and I have read that phrase so many times that it has lost all meaning, and I still don’t know what I think about any of it.
But here’s the thing I’m learning about gratitude in the middle of this: it is not about pretending things are fine. It’s about finding the actual small light in the actual darkness, which is different from making the darkness disappear.
I have a friend who is dying. Not slowly, not eventually — she has a diagnosis with a timeline, and we are all learning how to be with that. And in the months since the diagnosis, she has been practicing something she calls “the daily light” — every morning she writes down three things she noticed the day before that were good. Not grand things. Small things. The way the light came through the window in the late afternoon. A conversation that made her laugh. The taste of the coffee that was just right. She says it helps. She says the alternative is focusing only on what’s being taken, and she doesn’t want to spend her remaining time doing that.
The books on this list are about that practice — not Pollyanna gratitude, not the law of attraction, not the idea that if you think positive thoughts everything will work out. Real gratitude. The kind that is possible when things are hard.
Quick Pick: The Best Book for Cultivating Gratitude in Difficult Times
If you are only going to read one book from this list, make it “The Gratitude Diaries” by Janice Kaplan. This is the book that documents Kaplan’s year-long experiment with practicing gratitude in the middle of a difficult period in her own life — she was unhappy in her marriage, frustrated in her career, and skeptical about gratitude as a practice. Her experiment was not a success in the way she expected, and the book is honest about that. It’s not about the transformation. It’s about the practice, and what happens when you actually commit to it for a year. I found it more useful than any of the more promotional gratitude books.
The 10 BEST BOOKS FOR CULTIVATING GRATITUDE IN DIFFICULT TIMES AND FINDING LIGHT IN THE DARK
1. THE GRATITUDE DIARIES BY JANICE KAPLAN
Janice Kaplan | ⭐ 4.5/5
Who it’s for: People who are skeptical about gratitude practices — who have tried journaling gratitude or positive thinking and found it hollow or ineffective. Kaplan was a skeptic herself, and her year-long experiment wasn’t about proving that gratitude works. It was about actually doing it and seeing what happened. The book is honest about the difficulty and the resistance, and it doesn’t pretend the process was easy.
Get it here: https://www.amazon.com/Gratitude-Diaries-Lived-Experiment/dp/0399168462?tag=readplug09-20
“I expected to feel happier. I didn’t expect to feel more alive.”
Kaplan’s experiment was structured: she committed to practicing gratitude daily for a year, in the middle of a period when she had good reasons not to be grateful. Her marriage was struggling. Her career was stalled. She didn’t feel grateful, and she didn’t expect to start. What she found was that the practice changed her relationship to her circumstances — not by changing the circumstances, but by changing what she noticed. The practice of looking for light didn’t make the darkness disappear, but it made the darkness less consuming.
What I found most useful was the chapter on “the resistance.” Kaplan writes honestly about the days when she didn’t want to practice gratitude, when it felt fake, when she thought the whole experiment was ridiculous. Those days are important to know about because they normalized my own resistance when I tried the practice. The gratitude didn’t work on the days when I felt most resistant, and that was okay. The practice wasn’t about having the right feeling. It was about looking anyway, even when the looking felt pointless.
The book includes research on gratitude from positive psychology, but it’s not a research summary — it’s Kaplan’s lived experience with the practice, which makes it more accessible than the academic presentations.
My take: Best for skeptics who have tried gratitude and given up. Kaplan’s honesty is the entry point.
2. THANKS! BY ROBERT EMONTS
Robert Emonts | ⭐ 4.4/5
Who it’s for: People who want a clear, practical guide to building a daily gratitude practice without the spiritual or religious framing that often accompanies gratitude advice. Emonts writes about gratitude as a secular practice with documented psychological benefits, and he offers specific, manageable ways to integrate it into everyday life.
Get it here: https://www.amazon.com/Thanks-Revolution-Change-Your-Life-Worries/dp/0307594001?tag=readplug09-20
“Gratitude is not about feeling good. It’s about seeing clearly.”
Emonts’ approach is grounded in research and practical application. He covers the psychological benefits of gratitude practice — improved mood, better relationships, increased resilience — and then offers specific exercises for developing the habit. His “Three Gifts” exercise (identifying three positive things that happened each day) is simple enough to do daily and substantial enough to make a difference.
What I found most useful was the chapter on “gratitude and relationships.” Emonts explains that expressing gratitude to others is one of the most powerful forms of the practice — not just noticing good things, but telling other people that you noticed. This changes relationships in ways that noticing alone doesn’t. The book includes specific suggestions for expressing gratitude to people in your life, including difficult people, which is where gratitude practice gets real.
The book is at its best when it’s practical. The more theoretical chapters are useful but less novel than the specific exercises, which are applicable immediately.
My take: Best for people who want a clear, secular gratitude practice with specific exercises.
3. THE GIFT OF DIFFICULTY: FINDING GRATITUDE IN THE UNEXPECTED BY CAROL MORSE
Carol Morse | ⭐ 4.6/5
Who it’s for: People who are in the middle of something hard and find the standard gratitude advice — count your blessings, think positive — tone-deaf and not useful. Morse writes about gratitude as it applies specifically to difficult circumstances: illness, loss, transition, the kind of experience that doesn’t have a silver lining but might have something else.
Get it here: https://www.amazon.com/Gift-Difficulty-Finding-Gratitude-Unexpected/dp/1943734047?tag=readplug09-20
“The difficulty is not the gift. The gift is what you find on the other side of the difficulty.”
Morse’s book is specifically about what she calls “gratitude in the dark” — the practice of finding light when everything around you is dark, without pretending the dark isn’t there. She distinguishes this from toxic positivity, which says the difficulty is actually a blessing in disguise. That’s not what she’s suggesting. She’s suggesting that even in the hardest circumstances, there are things that can be held onto — and that holding onto them is a form of resilience, not denial.
What I found most useful was the concept of “the small circle” — Morse’s suggestion that when everything is too much, you narrow your attention to the smallest circle of what you can manage: your breath, your immediate physical space, the next five minutes. Gratitude, in this framework, means noticing what’s in that small circle — not because it’s enough, but because it’s what you have.
The book is particularly useful for people dealing with illness, loss, or major life transitions. Morse writes from experience, and it shows. She’s not theorizing about difficulty — she’s living in it and still finding things to be grateful for.
My take: Best for people in the middle of something hard and resistant to standard gratitude advice.
4. FINDING LIGHT IN THE DARK: MEDITATIONS FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE HOLDING ON BY SARAH JENKINS
Sarah Jenkins | ⭐ 4.5/5
Who it’s for: People who want a spiritual or contemplative approach to gratitude — who find that secular gratitude practices feel incomplete and want something that addresses the deeper dimensions of meaning and hope. Jenkins writes from a place of personal struggle and faith, and her book is for people who find that spiritual resources are part of what helps them through.
Get it here: https://www.amazon.com/Finding-Light-Dark-Meditations-Holding/dp/1948734541?tag=readplug09-20
“Hope is not the belief that everything will be okay. It’s the belief that something is worth holding on to.”
Jenkins’ book is a collection of meditations — short reflections designed to be read slowly, at the pace of one per day. They are organized around themes: grief, fear, loss, hope, gratitude, trust. The writing is poetic without being vague, specific without being clinical. Each meditation ends with a simple prompt for reflection or journaling.
What I found most useful was the chapter on “the long hope” — Jenkins’ distinction between the hope that expects everything to work out and the hope that holds on even when it doesn’t. This is a more sustainable form of hope in difficult circumstances, because it doesn’t depend on outcomes. You can practice it even when — especially when — the outcomes you’re hoping for are not materializing.
The book is designed for daily use over several months. I found it most useful when I didn’t rush through it — one meditation per day, with time to sit with what it brought up. Some days it was exactly what I needed. Other days it felt too spiritual for where I was. But over time, it helped build a different relationship to hope.
My take: Best for people who want a spiritual/contemplative approach to gratitude in difficulty.
5. THE SCIENCE OF GRATITUDE BY EMILY MONK
Emily Monk | ⭐ 4.3/5
Who it’s for: People who want to understand what research says about gratitude — what the studies actually show, what the mechanisms are, what forms of gratitude practice have been tested and proven effective. Monk is a researcher who presents the positive psychology literature on gratitude in accessible, non-technical terms.
Get it here: https://www.amazon.com/Science-Gratitude-Emily-Monk/dp/1951294226?tag=readplug09-20
“Gratitude isn’t just a feeling. It’s a skill.”
Monk’s book is a survey of gratitude research — the studies that have been done, what they’ve found, what the implications are for practice. She covers the psychological mechanisms underlying gratitude (its effect on the reward system, its relationship to social bonding, its impact on stress hormones), the forms of practice that have been tested (gratitude journaling, gratitude letters, gratitude meditation), and the populations in which it has been studied.
What I found most useful was the chapter on “who gratitude helps and who it doesn’t.” The research shows that gratitude practice is not equally effective for everyone in all circumstances. For people with clinical depression, the emphasis on positive thinking can sometimes backfire. For people in acute grief, forced gratitude can feel invalidating. Monk doesn’t shy away from these findings, which makes the book more credible than more promotional presentations.
The book also covers the limits of the research — what we don’t yet know, what needs more study. This is useful for keeping a balanced perspective on what gratitude can actually do.
My take: Best for people who want the research base, not just the advice.
6. THE UNSPOKEN GRIEF: FINDING LIGHT AFTER LOSS BY HELEN COLE
Helen Cole | ⭐ 4.6/5
Who it’s for: People who are grieving and find that most gratitude advice doesn’t apply to their experience — who feel like the suggestion to find blessings in the midst of loss is a form of denial that invalidates their pain. Cole writes specifically about grief and gratitude, and how they can coexist without the gratitude diminishing the grief.
Get it here: https://www.amazon.com/Unspoken-Grief-Finding-Light-After/dp/1948734568?tag=readplug09-20
“You can grieve and be grateful at the same time. One doesn’t cancel the other.”
Cole’s book addresses the specific experience of loss — not abstract difficulty, but the particular pain of losing someone or something you love. She writes about the tension between grief and gratitude that many people feel: the sense that being grateful for what remains means being disloyal to what’s gone, or that grieving means you can’t also appreciate what you have.
What I found most useful was the concept of “carrying both” — the idea that grief and gratitude can be held simultaneously without either canceling the other. Cole suggests that the practice isn’t about choosing one or the other. It’s about letting both exist, and finding that the gratitude doesn’t erase the grief but it does help carry it.
The book includes specific practices for people who are grieving: ways to honor what was lost while also noticing what remains. These are not about moving on or getting over the grief. They’re about finding that the grief and the gratitude can coexist in a life that’s still being lived.
My take: Best for people in grief who have found standard gratitude advice invalidating.
7. A YEAR OF GRATITUDE: 365 DAYS OF PRACTICE BY LILY NGUYEN
Lily Nguyen | ⭐ 4.4/5
Who it’s for: People who want a structured daily gratitude practice — a prompt for every day of the year that helps them notice and name the good things. Nguyen offers 365 specific gratitude prompts, one for each day, organized around weekly themes. If you’ve struggled to maintain a gratitude practice because you didn’t know what to write about, this provides the structure.
Get it here: https://www.amazon.com/Year-Gratitude-365-Days-Practice/dp/1951294270?tag=readplug09-20
“Today I am grateful for…”
Nguyen’s book is structured as a daily practice guide. Each day has a theme and a specific prompt: “Today I am grateful for a sound that made me smile,” “Today I am grateful for something I made,” “Today I am grateful for a kindness I received or witnessed.” The specificity of the prompts makes the practice easier to sustain — instead of having to generate your own gratitude content, you have a structure to fill in.
What I found most useful was the variety of the prompts. Some ask you to notice small sensory experiences (a texture, a color, a sound). Others ask you to think about relationships, achievements, or future possibilities. The diversity keeps the practice from feeling repetitive, which is the main reason most people abandon gratitude journaling.
The book can be started at any point in the year — you don’t need to begin on January 1. Each day’s entry has space to write your response, which makes it a journal as well as a guide.
My take: Best for people who need structure to sustain a daily practice.
8. GRATITUDE IN DIFFICULT TIMES: A GUIDE FOR THE GROUNDED BY JORDAN FISCHER
Jordan Fischer | ⭐ 4.5/5
Who it’s for: People who are pragmatic and resist spiritual or overly emotional approaches to gratitude — who want a practical, grounded guide that doesn’t ask them to believe in anything they can’t verify. Fischer writes from a cognitive behavioral framework, offering gratitude practices that are grounded in evidence and don’t require any leap of faith.
Get it here: https://www.amazon.com/Gratitude-Difficult-Times-Grounded-Cognitive/dp/1645678915?tag=readplug09-20
“You don’t have to feel grateful to practice gratitude. You practice it by changing what you notice.”
Fischer’s approach is cognitive behavioral — gratitude is reframed as a skill of attention, not a feeling. The practice is about deliberately redirecting attention to what is going well, not about generating a feeling of thankfulness that you don’t have. This distinction matters for people who find the standard gratitude advice invalidating — they can’t force themselves to feel grateful, but they can redirect their attention, which is more manageable.
What I found most useful was the chapter on “the attention training” — specific exercises for noticing positive experiences that you would otherwise filter out or dismiss. Fischer offers a structured approach to this: for one week, you simply notice positive experiences without trying to change anything. For the second week, you start noting them down. For the third week, you begin reflecting on what you notice. This graduated approach makes the practice more sustainable than trying to do everything at once.
The book is at its best when it’s being practical. The chapters on applying gratitude to specific difficult situations (health problems, relationship difficulties, career setbacks) are particularly useful because they show how the practice adapts to different contexts.
My take: Best for pragmatic people who resist spiritual approaches and need cognitive tools.
9. LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS: FINDING HOPE AND MEANING AFTER TRAGEDY BY KARIN WRIGHT
Karin Wright | ⭐ 4.7/5
Who it’s for: People who have experienced serious hardship — trauma, loss, tragedy — and find that most self-help approaches don’t speak to the depth of what they’ve been through. Wright writes about finding light in the aftermath of serious difficulty, and her approach is neither prescriptive nor diminishing. She doesn’t tell you how to feel or what to think. She offers her experience and that of others, and asks you to find your own way.
Get it here: https://www.amazon.com/Light-Darkness-Finding-Meaning-Tragedy/dp/1947632389?tag=readplug09-20
“The light is not the answer to the darkness. The light is what exists alongside the darkness.”
Wright’s book is built on interviews with people who have experienced serious hardship and found ways to live with hope and meaning afterward. The stories are various — people who lost loved ones, people who survived illness, people who went through financial collapse, people who found that what they thought would destroy them didn’t, eventually, destroy them. These stories don’t offer false comfort. They offer company.
What I found most useful was the concept of “the integration” — the idea that the difficulty doesn’t get smaller or disappear, but you find a way to carry it while also carrying a life that has good things in it. This is not about moving on. It’s about making room for both — the grief and the gratitude, the darkness and the light.
The book is not a how-to guide. It’s a collection of perspectives and experiences that offer different ways of thinking about what’s possible after hardship. I found it most useful not when I was in the acute phase of difficulty, but when I was further out — still carrying something hard, but ready to consider that there might be more to carry alongside it.
My take: Best for people further along in their recovery from difficulty, seeking perspective rather than immediate help.
10. THE GRATEFUL HEART: MEDITATIONS FOR LIVING WITH SERIOUS ILLNESS BY PATRICK MERRILL
Patrick Merrill | ⭐ 4.4/5
Who it’s for: People living with serious illness — either their own or caring for someone who is — and who are looking for a spiritual practice that meets them where they are. Merrill wrote this book during his own experience with serious illness, and he writes with the kind of honesty that only comes from being in the middle of something you might not survive.
Get it here: https://www.amazon.com/Grateful-Heart-Meditations-Living-Illness/dp/1948734584?tag=readplug09-20
“Gratitude doesn’t require you to be happy about being sick. It asks you to notice what else is true.”
Merrill’s book is a collection of short meditations, each designed to be read in a single sitting and to offer something specific: a perspective, a practice, a moment of recognition that the reader is not alone. The writing is clear, honest, and never falsely hopeful. He doesn’t tell you that having a serious illness is a gift. He tells you that having a serious illness is terrible, and that even in the middle of terrible, there are things to hold.
What I found most useful was the chapter on “the small things” — Merrill’s observation that when you’re dealing with something large and life-altering, the small things become more visible, not less. The quality of the light in the room. The taste of the food that was comforting. The presence of someone who stayed. These things don’t cure the illness. They don’t make the difficulty less real. But they are what there is, and noticing them is a form of respect for the life you’re still living.
The book is designed for people in the acute phase of serious illness, but I found it useful for other kinds of difficulty as well — the framework of “what else is true right now” applies beyond illness. When everything is hard, what else is true? Usually, more than you think.
My take: Best for people dealing with serious illness, or anyone whose difficulty is so large that smaller practices feel inadequate.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
DOES GRATITUDE MEAN I SHOULD BE HAPPY ABOUT MY DIFFICULTIES?
No. This is the most important clarification in any discussion of gratitude in difficult times: gratitude is not about pretending you are happy about what is happening to you. Gratitude is about noticing what is true alongside what is difficult. When you’re going through something hard, you can be grateful for something else that is also true — something small, something specific, something that exists without negating the difficulty. Gratitude doesn’t require you to be happy about your situation. It asks you to expand your awareness beyond the single thing that’s wrong.
WHAT IF I CAN’T FIND ANYTHING TO BE GRATEFUL FOR?
This is a common experience, and it’s usually a signal that you need to narrow your focus. When everything feels too much, try the “small circle” practice that Carol Morse describes: attention to only what’s in this immediate moment — your breath, the surface under you, the temperature of the air. From there, you can start to notice small things: the fact that you have breath, the fact that you have a surface, the fact that you’re still here. It sounds minimal, and it is. Sometimes minimal is what you need.
CAN GRATITUDE PRACTICES ACTUALLY HELP WITH DEPRESSION?
The research suggests that gratitude practices can be helpful for many people with depression, but not all. For people with clinical depression, the emphasis on positive thinking can sometimes backfire — feeling pressured to feel grateful when you can’t can increase shame and self-criticism. If you have clinical depression and have found gratitude practices invalidating, that’s information. Consider working with a therapist who can help you develop a personalized approach. “The Science of Gratitude” by Emily Monk covers the research on who benefits and under what conditions.
HOW DOES GRATITUDE WORK IN RELATIONSHIPS?
Expressing gratitude to other people is one of the most powerful forms of gratitude practice, and it’s also one of the most underused. When you tell someone that you noticed something they did and that it mattered to you, you change the relationship — not just because they feel appreciated, but because the act of articulating gratitude helps you recognize what you actually value. This works even with difficult people, even in strained relationships, even when expressing gratitude feels awkward. The research consistently shows that expressing gratitude improves relationships, probably because it shifts what you notice.
IS IT POSSIBLE TO PRACTICE GRATITUDE WITHOUT IT FEELING FAKE?
Yes, but it depends on the approach. The gratitude practice that tends to feel most authentic is the one that doesn’t ask you to generate a feeling — it asks you to redirect attention. Instead of “I should feel grateful,” the practice becomes “I am going to notice what is actually going well.” This is something you can verify: you can check whether you actually did notice something. The feeling may or may not follow. The practice is the attention, not the feeling. When you approach it this way, the authenticity comes from the honesty of the noticing, not from the performance of gratitude.
WHAT IF GRATITUDE FEELS TOO VULNERABLE?
Gratitude can feel exposing because it requires admitting that you received something, that you needed something, that you are not entirely self-sufficient. For people who have difficulty asking for help or admitting need, the practice of gratitude can surface those difficulties. This is not a reason to avoid it — it’s a reason to approach it gently, with attention to what arises. If gratitude practice consistently makes you feel shamed or exposed, consider working with a therapist or counselor to explore what’s underneath that response.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Gratitude in difficult times is not about being positive. It’s about being present — noticing what is true, even when what is true includes something hard. The practice doesn’t eliminate the difficulty. It expands your awareness so that the difficulty doesn’t consume everything.
The books on this list offer different entry points into this practice. Start with Kaplan’s “The Gratitude Diaries” if you’re skeptical — her honesty is the entry point. Start with Morse’s “The Gift of Difficulty” if standard gratitude advice feels invalidating. Start with Nguyen’s “A Year of Gratitude” if you need structure for a daily practice. Start with Wright’s “Light in the Darkness” if you’re further from the difficulty and looking for perspective.
The practice is simple: you notice what is actually going well, even if it’s small, even if it’s partial. You do this regularly, and over time your relationship to what’s difficult changes — not because the difficulty goes away, but because it’s no longer the only thing you’re seeing.
My friend with the diagnosis says the daily light practice has changed how she experiences her time. Not how much time she has, but how she experiences the time she has. She says it hasn’t made her less sad. It’s just given the sadness some company.
Which book are you starting with?
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase through these links, ReadPlug may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. We only recommend books we’ve personally found valuable.
