Holiday reading for those who seek enlightenment

Even when lying on the beach, you can plan your future career. JULIE MIDDLETON reports.

If you must think about your career direction while lying on the beach, here's a useful selection of recently released, thought-provoking books.

* Turn It Off: How to unplug from the anytime-anywhere office without disconnecting your career, Gil Gordon, Nicholas Brealey Publishing, $29.95, available now.

We're overtired because we're overwired. If you plan to spend some of your time at the beach-house working out what you want in terms of work-life balance, this book would appear to be a good primer.

Starting from the premise that technology has made our lives more frantic rather than more organised and efficient, Gordon, who describes himself as a "telecommuting and virtual-office expert", explores why we have become so attached to our offices - "defensive overwork" is an interesting concept - and offers all sorts of dinky charts and questionnaires for determining if you have gone over the line.

Tips for getting back in control are offered, including things along the lines of what to say when your boss rings you at home on a Sunday about something that could wait.

Unusually - but helpfully - for a book of this type, it has an index.

* Successful But Something Missing: Daring to enjoy life to the full, Ben Renshaw, Random House, $16.95, available February.

What is success? Renshaw, described as a psychotherapist and life coach, challenges readers to rethink their definition of success.

Essentially, he encourages a shift from gauging success as an outer state - something gained from external forces - to something that comes from within.

Success, he says, is a state of mind, and our self-esteem and identity are linked to our attitude rather than our achievements.

Various exercises and reflections throughout the book encourage a realignment of your life into that format; anecdotes and examples from his work pepper the book.

* Personal Best: Step-by-step coaching for creating the life you want, David Rock, Simon and Schuster, $24.95. Available now.

Every sportsperson has a coach, and you should too. That's the idea underpinning this book, which offers a 12-week life-coaching programme in 185 pages.

It starts by outlining what a goal might be, and suggests that such a thing can range from feeling like a lovesick teenager to opening a business or loving being at work.

The path is laid out meticulously and others who have been there tell their stories.

* Now, Discover Your Strengths, Marcus Buckingham and Donald O Clifton, Simon and Schuster, $55. Available now.

Talk about added value. Each edition of this book carries a web address and unique identification number that gives readers access to The Gallup Organisation's Strength Finder profiler. (Gallup employs both authors.)

The internet test provides paired statements - for example, "I concentrate harder than most people on what I want to get done" versus "for me, coincidences are luck, chance, a fluke, or an accident" - that require quick, top-of-mind responses and between 30 and 40 minutes. The result?

A list of your top five strengths and a book which outlines how to build your life around those strengths.

Along the way it deals with questions such as: Are there any obstacles to building my strengths? How can I manage around my weaknesses?

* Putting First What Matters Most: Proven strategies for success in work in life, Jane Cleland, Piatkus Books, $34.95. Available now.

Henry David Thoreau wrote: "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." If you can identify with those words, this is probably going to be a useful read.

American Cleland starts by outlining how to communicate effectively with people of different personality styles, the aim being that as you learn to speak other people's language, you'll be able to talk with them in a way that will secure their cooperation speedily. The second part examines the priority-setting process.

* The Dark Side of the Light Chasers: Reclaiming your power, creativity, brilliance, and dreams, Debbie Ford, Hodder Headline, $24.95. Available now.

Darth Vader would have liked this. Ford aims to explain how consciously or unconsciously we hide and deny our "dark sides, rejecting those aspects of our true natures rather than giving ourselves the freedom to live authentically".

The book is about embracing - even loving - the traits that society might label weaknesses or negative - and suggests that they might even be hidden strengths.