Books like A Mindfulness Guide for the Frazzled

I'm not quite sure where to start with this review. I made a start on Mark Williams' Mindfulness: A practical guide to finding peace in a frantic world quite some time ago but got a bit bogged down, so when my doctor diagnosed me as a tiny compacted ball of stress and said I should look into mindfulness, I sagged at the thought of trying again with the Williams, in spite of its good reviews, then found this at a bookshop and thought I'd give it a go. And it's really very good. It's extremely readable, and Wax includes plenty of easily-digestible but apparently thorough information about how the brain works and what mindfulness can do about it.I really liked the sections about her own experiences. These often tread the line between funny and harrowing and I feel are mostly useful in describing a certain mental state that mindfulness can help with. I did get the feeling as I read through the book though, that perhaps my problems weren't entirely relevant. Following up though, I've gone back to the Williams (which I'm finding much easier this time, now I've got some context for it) and the situations he describes are much more in line with my own experience. Possibly this is because I don't have depression, and neither did I go through a more-than-averagely-traumatic childhood.The book includes what I felt to be excellent sections on mindfulness for children and teenagers. I've seen that other readers who don't have children have skipped these parts, but actually I found them very interesting because while the exercises there don't have any practical application to my life, they describe how the brain develops through the various phases of childhood. So they're interesting, and I suspect relevant to anyone who has any sort of contact with babies, children or teenagers, even if they're not your own.Wax has developed her own 6-week mindfulness course, which is shorter than most approaches (8 weeks seems to be the standard). I've read through it and am aiming to have a go at it, but can't really report on whether it's a good'un. It's been given the tick of approval by Mark Williams, however, who apart from being one of the originators of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) was Wax's tutor for her Masters degree in MBCT at Oxford. The course seems to be a little less formal and more in keeping with normal lives than others I've looked at. It gives a strong impression that you can do it without needing to significantly change your current activities, which is appealing and certainly should make it an option worthy of consideration for those who are concerned that they might not commit to a more formal course. That said, the nature of mindfulness does require commitment, so you still need to do the practice to get the results!I enjoyed Ruby Wax's writing style, although I take issue with the Arianna Huffington quote on the back cover describing it as 'hilarious' because it isn't. Definitely amusing. At times outright funny. But most of the book I'd describe as serious with a large splash of humour. Occasionally I felt the humour felt a little forced and distracted from the serious message a little but for the most part I felt it was well balanced and that the information was front and centre. I don't actually think I've seen any of Ruby Wax's work as a comedian, although I knew her name and face, so I don't know how her writing style compares to her comedy work.In short, I think this is a good, readable introduction to mindfulness, if you bear in mind that Wax's own issues are on the extreme side and the practice is supposed to also be useful for less dramatic situations. It's probably also a good choice if you want to understand something of what it's like to experience depression or if you're struggling to deal with a child or teenager's difficult behaviour.