That’s how you came here, like a star
without a name. Move across the night sky
with those anonymous lights.
―Rumi
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 and insight.
Here, also, are my books … it’s difficult not to feel a certain love for the works we’ve managed to write and publish. Thank you to all who have read and sent warm and thoughtful messages; the journey has been so very worthwhile. ―
A Happy Truth: Last Dogs Aren’t Always Last (2019) by D.A. (Daisy) Hickman
Ancients of the Earth: Poems of Time (2017) by D.A. (Daisy) Hickman
The Silence of Morning: A Memoir of Time Undone (2015) by D.A. (Daisy) Hickman
Always Returning: The Wisdom of Place by D.A. (2014) (Daisy) Hickman *15th anniversary edition
First edition, William Morrow: Where the Heart Resides: Timeless Wisdom of the American Prairie
Let the writer take up surgery or bricklaying if he is interested in technique.
There is no mechanical way to get the writing done, no shortcut.
The young writer would be a fool to follow a theory. Teach yourself by your own mistakes;
people learn only by error. The good artist believes that nobody is good enough to give him advice.
He has supreme vanity. No matter how much he admires the old writer, he wants to beat him.
―William Faulkner
- Here are a few books (in no particular order) I’ve read or plan to read (soon):
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values by Robert M. Pirsig
Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live by Barbara Ehrenreich
Hourglass: Time, Memory, Marriage by Dani Shapiro
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness by William Styron
Moments of Seeing: Reflections from an Ordinary Life by Katrina Kenison
The Paris Wife by Paula McClain
The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert
Leaving the Hall Light On by Madeline Sharples
The Art of Memoir by Mary Karr
The Gratitude Diaries by Janice Kaplan
The Writing Life by Annie Dillard
Devotion by Dani Shapiro
The Angel in My Pocket by Sukey Forbes
Lila by Marilynne Robinson
Writing Blue Highways: The Story of How a Book Happened by William Least Heat-Moon
Truth and Beauty by Ann Patchett
The Gift by Lewis Hyde
The True Secret of Writing: Connecting Life with Language by Natalie Goldberg
An American Childhood by Annie Dillard
The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Blush: A Mennonite Girl Meets a Glittering World by Shirley Showalter
Shepherd: A Memoir by Richard Gilbert
Magical Journey: An Apprenticeship in Contentment by Katrina Kenison
Still Writing by Dani Shapiro
Learning to Breathe by Priscilla Warner
The Shadow of Sirius by W.S. Merwin
Unframed Originals: Recollections by W.S. Merwin
The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself by Michael A. Singer
Dog Songs: Poems by Mary Oliver
Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry by Jim Harrison and Ted Kooser
Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity by David Lynch
The Blessing by Gregory Orr
Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow by Elizabeth Lesser
The Accidental Buddhist by Dinty W. Moore
The Discomfort Zone: A Memoir by Jonathan Franzen
My Father’s Gardens by Karen Levy
Death be not Proud by John Gunther
Clean by David Sheff
Guardians of Being: Spiritual Teachings from Our Dogs and Cats by Eckhart Tolle and Patrick McDonnell
Here, There, Elsewhere: Stories from the Road by William Least Heat-Moon
Seven Thousand Ways to Listen: Staying Close to What is Sacred by Mark Nepo
Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife by Dr. Eben Alexander
Power v. Force: The Hidden Determinants of Human Behavior by David R. Hawkins, MD, Ph.D.
Letters to a Young Scientist by Edward O. Wilson
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
The Faith Club 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
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed
Summer Doorways: A Memoir by W.S. Merwin
The Mindful Writer 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
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
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 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 Dieby 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 Amazonby 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 Creativityby 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
Spiritual Liberation: Fulfilling Your Soul’s Potentialby 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
The Suicide Index: Putting My Father’s Death in Orderby Joan Wickersham
Beautiful Boy by David Sheff
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 Birdsedited by Billy Collins, paintings by David Allen Sibley
Giants in the Earth by O.E. Rolvaag
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