That’s how you came here, like a star
without a name. Move across the night sky
with those anonymous lights.
–RUMI
“A Star Without a Name”
I’ve always loved books. As a girl, I loved going to the Carnegie Library in my hometown, checking out as many books as allowed. The rows and rows of books, like flowers in a garden, just waiting for someone to come along and admire them. Read them. Remember them.
I’ve never lost my love for books. They have seen me through all kinds of life situations. Challenges, opportunities, educational programs, degrees, and so on. Many have inspired me with their wisdom, and some have remained on my nightstand for months … wonderful words I couldn’t let go of. As a writer, a poet, I have nothing but respect for my colleagues, because working with words is always an adventure that takes incredible persistence.
I hope books are important in your life. So much to learn and enjoy. The world awaits via the written word.
What are your favorite books, what authors do you follow? What is happening with the world of books these days, from format to content?
- Here are a few books that I’ve read or plan to read (soon):
Far From the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity by Andrew Solomon
The Zen of Living and Dying by Philip Kapleau
From Science and God: A Physicist’s Journey into the Mystery of Consciousness by Peter Russell
Learning to Breathe by Priscilla Warner
A Path with Heart by Jack Kornfield
Simple Abundance by Sarah Ban Breathnach
Dakota Blues by Lynne Spreen
The Memoir and the Memoirist by Thomas Larson
The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton
Leaving the Hall Light On by Madeline Sharples
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed
The Shadow of Sirius by W.S. Merwin
Fast Track & Bluff by John DeDakis
Summer Doorways: A Memoir by W.S. Merwin
The Mindful Writer by Dinty W. Moore
The Accidental Buddhist by Dinty W. Moore
Begin with Yes: A Short Conversation … by Paul S. Boynton
The End of Illness by David B. Agus, M.D.
Stay Awake: Stories on Grief and Everything After by Dan Chaon
Musical Chairs & To Begin Again by Jen Knox
Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength by John Tierney and Roy F. Baumeister
Blue Nights by Joan Didion
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
Alice Bliss by Laura Harrington
The Paper Garden by Molly Peacock
Crestmont by Holly Weiss
Standing at Water’s Edge: Moving Past Fear, Blocks, and Pitfalls to Discover the Power of Creative Immersion by Anne Paris, PhD
Bird Cloud: A Memoir by Annie Proulx
The Bird Sisters by Rebecca Rassmusen
This Is Not The Story You Think It Is: A Season of Unlikely Happiness by Laura Munson
Heaven is for Real by Todd Burpo
Devotion by Dani Shapiro
Under the Mercy Trees by Heather Newton
Heaven: Our Enduring Fascination with the Afterlife by Lisa Miller
Halfway to Each Other: How a Year in Italy Brought Our Family Home by Susan Pohlman
The Ride by Jane Kennedy Sutton
History of a Suicide: My Sister’s Unfinished Life by Jill Bialosky
Masters of the Heart by Michelle Hoover
Life after Death: The Burden of Proof by Deepak Chopra
A Course in Miracles published by the Foundation for Inner Peace
Being Peace by Thich Nhat Hanh
Understanding Our Mind by Thich Nhat Hanh
The Florist’s Daughter by Patricia Hampl
Lit by Mary Karr
A New Dawn Awaits by E. Dee Conrad
(Re) Making Love: A Sex after Sixty Story by Mary L. Tabor
The Season of Second Chances by Diane Meier
Nail Your Novel: Why Writers Abandon Books and How You Can Draft, Fix and Finish with Confidence by Roz Morris
Composed: A Memoir by Rosanne Cash
Freedom by Jonathan Franzen
How to by Alone: Essays by Jonathan Franzen
The Discomfort Zone: A Memoir by Jonathan Franzen
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared M. Diamond
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared M. Diamond
Visions, Trips & Crowded Rooms: Who and What You See Before You Die by David Kessler
Dreamgates: Exploring the Worlds of Soul, Imagination, and Life Beyond Death by Robert Moss
The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann
The Art Spirit by Robert Henri
Women, Food and God by Geneen Roth
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
Ignore Everybody: And 39 Other Keys to Creativity by Hugh MacLeod
Too Much Happiness (stories) by Alice Munro
Hot, Flat & Crowded by Thomas Friedman
Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage by Elizabeth Gilbert
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Spiritual Liberation: Fulfilling Your Soul’s Potential by Michael Bernard Beckwith
Blue Highways by William Least Heat Moon
PrairyErth by William Least Heat Moon
Mozart’s Brain and the Fighter Pilot by Richard Restak, M.D.
Comfort: A Journey Through Grief by Ann Hood
A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle
The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D.
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow by Elizabeth Lesser
The Suicide Index: Putting My Father’s Death in Order by Joan Wickersham
Beautiful Boy by David Sheff
Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity by David Lynch
Old Friend from Far Away by Natalie Goldberg
Happy Yoga by Steve Ross
Black Hills by Nora Roberts
Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
Poe and Fanny by John May
An Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison
From Where You Dream by Robert Butler
Wesley the Owl by Stacey O’Brien
The Unstrung Harp by Edward Gorey
Bright Wings: An Illustrated Anthology of Poems About Birds edited by Billy Collins, paintings by David Allen Sibley
Giants in the Earth by O.E. Rolvaag
Death be not Proud by John Gunther
The Art of Memory by Frances A. Yates
… and many, many more!
In books lies the soul of the whole Past Time:
the articulate audible voice of the Past, when the body and material
substance of it has altogether vanished like a dream.
~Thomas Carlyle