I can never just read one book at a time, unless it’s a novel. Then I am completely taken–engrossed and spend every moment possible with characters that I love or hate. When I get to the last ten pages or so, I can’t bear the idea that the book will end and I know that when it does, I will be totally bereft.
There are books everywhere in our house. When I’m not reading fiction, I prefer a buffet…here’s my current menu:
The Servant as Leader–by Robert K. Greenleaf
Experience, Contradiction, Narrative & Imagination–by David Epston & Michael White
An Invitation to Social Construction–by Kenneth Gergen
The Inner Edge–by Richard Wedermeyer and Ronald Jue
The Wild Braid–by Stanley Kunitz with Genine Lentine
Let me know what you are reading…in the novel department, I just finished The Secret Life of Bees. I adored it!
Now, a little update: the books are above are sitting on my coffee table in the living room, as a buffet. I WAS reading them–lately, I got engrossed in Jodi Picoult’s book, The Pact. Whoa, disturbing and amazing.
UPDATE CONTINUES…There’s something about summer that just begs for fiction. I vividly remember the summer that I read the entire Nancy Drew series and some of the Hardy Boys. It was pure pleasure. I read at the public pool, I read in the car, I read on the dock at Panther Pond, I read at the beach, I read late into the night while my parents and their friends sipped gin and tonics with wedges of fresh lime on our screened-in porch. Summer was a time to be lazy and read. I rode my blue Schwinn bike to the public library and filled the wire basket with books.
I still carry a body-felt sense of the last day of school…I feel the liberation and want to hunker down with a stack of good fiction with a little Chic-lit on the side. Now I read on the train and on my deck and I often fall asleep with a book on my face.
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
The Bonesetter’s Daughter by Amy Tan
A Piece of Work by Laura Zigman
The Double Helix by James Watson
The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Lost and Found by Carolyn Parkhurst
How to Become a Famous Writer Before You’re Dead by Ariel Gore
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Unframed Originals by W.S. Merwin
Heat by Bill Buford
The Great Failure (yet again) by Natalie Goldberg
Writing Down the Bones (yet again) by Natalie Goldberg
You Staying Young: The Owner’s Manual for Extending Your Warranty by Michael Roizen, M.D. and Mehmet Oz
Socrates Cafe: A Fresh Taste of Philosophy by Christopher Phillips
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
31 Letters and 13 Dreams: Poems by Richard Hugo
Wasted by Marya Hornbacher
New Earth by Eckhart Tolle
Blessings of the Cosmos by Neil Douglas Klotz
Savoring by Fred B. Bryant & Joseph Veroff
The Mindful Brain by Dan Siegel
Long Life by Mary Oliver
Red Bird by Mary Oliver
Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
Beautiful Boy by David Sheff
Tweak by Nic Sheff
The Lost by Daniel Mendelsohn
Plan B by Annie Lamott
The Language of Life by Bill Moyers
Rilke’s Book of Hours Translations by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy
The Wise Heart by Jack Kornfield
Maps of Narrative Practice by Michael White
Thirst by Mary Oliver
Returning to Silence by Dainin Katagiri Roshi
You Have Something to Say by Dainin Katagiri Roshi
Expecting Adam by Martha Beck
Full Catastrophe Living (yet again) by Jon Kabat-Zinn
Coming to Our Senses by Jon Kabat-Zinn
Wherever You Go, There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn
Heal Thy Self by Saki Santorelli
Sacred Dying by Megory Anderson
Buddha Wept by Rocco Lo Bosco
The Shack by William P. Young
How to Know God by Deepak Chopra
How to Die by Sherwin Neuland
The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer
Ceremony (yet again) by Leslie Marmon Silko
Insight Dialogue by Gregory Kramer
Savor by Thich Nhat Hanh and Lilian Cheung
Women Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything by Geneen Roth and most of her other books
Mindless Eating by Brian Wanasink
Mindful Eating by Jan Chozen Bays
The Shadow of Sirius by W.S. Merwin
Blessed Unrest by Paul Hawken
Mother-Daughter Wisdom: Understanding the Crucial Link Between Mothers, Daughters and Health by Christiane Northrup
Still Here by Ram Dass
Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner
The Help by Katherine Stockett
Transcendence by Norman Rosenthal
The Second Book of the Tao by Stephen Mitchell
Long Quiet Highway by Natalie Goldberg
The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion by Christopher Germer
Where Many Rivers Meet by David Whyte
There are a couple on your list that sound fascinating. I am like you with multiple books going.
Taming the Tiger Within- by Thich Nhat Hanh
The Book of Qualities-by J. Ruth Gendler
Auguste Rodin-by Rainer Maria Rilke
Summer Knowledge- by Delmore Schwartz
A New England Nun and other stories-by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
Good reading!
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My current reading list [as I am also one that has to read a MILLION books at the same time]:
Imperium, Robert Harris,
The Book Thief, Markus Zusak
China Road, Rob Gifford
50 Facts that should change the world, Jessica Williams
In search of Kazakhstan, Christopher Robbins
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Howdy, I bumped into this site by on a fluke when I was going through Google then I popped in to your web site. I have to say your site is interesting I love your theme! don’t have any time at the current moment to look through your website web sitebut I have bookmarked it. I will be back in a day or two. Thanks for a great site.
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I resonate with many of your books. And I love your musings. Keep on, keeping on. Here is another book for you and others that I appreciate. Mark Nepo has written The Book of Awakening, with 366 readings for every day.
Here is one that I appreciated for December 2nd
“An Invitation”
“Yours is to live it, not to reveal it. Helen Luke
Helen Luke was a very wise woman, deeply grounded in the life of the spirit. I knew Helen during the last two years of her life. During that time she was a mentor to me. These words are from our last conversation. They troubled me, for I have spent my life becoming a writer, thinking that my job has been just that – to reveal what is essential and hidden.
In the time since Helen died, I’ve come to understand her last instructions as an invitation to shed any grand purpose, no matter how devoted we may be to what we are doing. She wasn’t telling me to stop writing, but to stop striving to be important. She was inviting me to stop recording the poetry of life and to enter the poetry of life.
This lesson applies to us all. If we devote ourselves to the life at hand, the rest will follow. For life, it seems, reveals itself through those willing to live. Anything else, no matter how beautiful, is just advertising… I discovered that living is the original art.
Glo
another writer…. author of – Guiding their way – day by day
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To W.S. Merwin for thoughts inspired by his and countless traveler’s voices:
…so with this moment comes a responsibility. Recognize that each choice; that each negative reaction of mine
will impede or each positive pair of glasses choose will reveal the best outcome. The simplicity of
unchanging nothingness just is.
By refusing to be that which I can not control, I inhale and enjoy a focused and decluttered daily experience.
Laugh, smile and enjoy being in the know, being in the now for no matter what yesterday was, or what today will be, m purpose for being remains to try and never leave those I love, who love me, without releasing and accepting my limitations with them.
Breath deep and allow a daily reflective moment to swallow just one second with silent energy. By marinating in the peaceful energy I carry this strength with me through out the day until it is time to say goodnight again.
(J.S. Calton, Jr. 2011)
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For the past 30 years I have been creating a reading list of books to read. What a gem to see what’s on your bookshelves. Thank you for sharing
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Wonderful stuff.. i enjoyed the Wendell Berry section. I have been insired deeply by his work. A couple of days ago, i met with him for a second time about some work that I am doing as a poet and a musician. I can say from that meeting that Wendell is true to his words. A very nice and humble person.. thanks for taking the time to share your inspiration.. take care..
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