About This Site
What this is
The Alfred Adler Bookshelf (book.themodel.be/adler/) is a book guide for people who got interested in Adlerian psychology — often through The Courage to Be Disliked — and don't know what to read next. This English edition selects five titles currently available on amazon.com and presents them in a reading order that won't defeat you: from the two dialogue bestsellers, through Adler's own accessible books, to the scholarly compendium. A Japanese edition is also maintained, alongside sister shelves such as The Socrates Bookshelf and The Nietzsche Bookshelf.
The editorial room's one consistent rule is that choosing the wrong first book is what makes people quit. With Adler in particular, readers stall either by stopping at the dialogue bestsellers or by leaping straight into clinical terminology. That is why we treat the design of the reading order — whole picture, then Adler's own voice, then the full system — as the most important thing on the site.
The one honesty note that shapes this site
The Courage to Be Disliked and The Courage to Be Happy are not Adler's own writing. They are Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga's interpretation and reconstruction of Adlerian psychology, staged as a dialogue between a philosopher and a young man; the emphases are chosen for a modern reader, and Adler did not phrase things this way himself. Adler's own books on this shelf are Understanding Human Nature and What Life Could Mean to You, with the Ansbachers' compendium gathering the wider body of his writing. We never blur that line — where a book gives you Adler-as-interpreted rather than Adler himself, the review says so, and treats the distinction as part of the subject rather than something to hide.
How books are chosen and rated
- Judgements about the works themselves rest on the editorial room's first-hand reading and bibliographic checking. Star ratings are our own; no Amazon customer reviews are reproduced.
- Difficulty ratings are our own. Each review states plainly what kind of book it is — a reconstructed dialogue, Adler's own popular work, or a scholarly compendium — and how demanding it is.
- All descriptions, summaries, and reviews are written by us; no publisher copy is reproduced.
- We avoid verbatim quotation from the books and the primary texts. Where we present an Adlerian concept or gist, we mark it as the editorial room's summary or paraphrase, and never pass it off as a reproduction of a published translation.
- Cover images are jacket-style images of our own design and differ from the actual covers.
- Prices and availability change, so we do not print them; always check the Amazon product page.
Amazon link disclosure
As an Amazon Associate, this site (The Alfred Adler Bookshelf) may earn from qualifying purchases.
Book links on this edition go to product pages on Amazon (amazon.com). If a purchase is made through them, this site may receive a commission at no additional cost to you. Commissions never influence the ratings — recommending books you will actually finish, and that actually reach Adler's thought, rather than books that merely sell, is in the end what serves readers best.
Privacy policy
This is a static site; no personal information is collected server-side. The browser's localStorage is used solely to count link clicks (to improve the ranking's accuracy); that data stays in your browser and is never transmitted. Once you follow a link to Amazon, Amazon.com's privacy policy applies.
Contact
For corrections and inquiries, please use the contact address on our sister site soqdoq.com.