Favourite Books

One of the best ways to get to know a person is to look at their bookshelf. I can think of one instant friend I met recently who has many of the same books on her shelves as I do. She always has a stack of library books and I usually want to read them after she is finished with them. Sometimes, I walk into someone's house and I can't figure out what is weird about it. Eventually, I figure it out - there is NO bookshelf visible at all!

So, here is a partial list of what's on my bookshelf:

Wayne Dyer's The Power of Intention
Deepak Chopra's The Book of Secrets and Seven Spiritual Laws for Parents and The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire (my absolute favourite book)
Eckhart Tolle's New Earth  (I also LOVED The Power of Now)
Rachel Naomi Remen's My Grandfather's Blessings
Mark Victor Hansen's One Minute Millionaire and The Power of Focus
Jack Canfield's The Success Principles
Robert G. Allen's Multiple Streams of Income

Barbara Coloroso's Kids Are Worth It
Gordon Neufeld & Gabor Mate's Hold On To Your Kids
Faber & Mazlish's classics Siblings Without Rivalry and How to Talk so Kids Will Listen

Really, the three major categories of books on my shelf are spiritual development, "success" or personal development, and parenting. The ones I like the best cover more than one of those categories.

I think I would call myself a voracious reader, but I read in spurts. Lately, I have read a couple of books on home-schooling, a lovely one called The Soul of Money, an auto-biographical book by a stay-at-home father called House-Broken, and a Berlitz book about helping your child with a foreign language. I just picked up Alfie Kohn's Punished by Rewards and I'm trying to decide if I'm going to take the plunge. His stuff is kind of heavy (very well researched, kind of academic), and I'm not sure if I have the attention span required at the moment.

I realized lately that I almost never read fiction anymore. Part of the reason is that I get so totally absorbed in fiction that I neglect everything else. I literally read to the exclusion of all else. Work does not get done, meals do not get prepared, and I do not sleep until the book is finished. Fortunately, I can usually finish a book in a day or two, but I can't afford to do it very often. At least with non-fiction, I can read a few chapters and then put the book DOWN for a while.

The other problem with getting so absorbed in a novel is that I take on the mood of the book. If it's a very sad story, I will feel melancholy and depressed for days. If I can strongly relate to a character, I adopt her attitude. If it involves violence or abuse or has dark themes, it colours my outlook on life. The solution is to read fairly light fiction, which isn't particularly interesting most of the time, so I'm back to non-fiction.

I enjoyed most of the Harry Potter series, and I absolutely loved the Da Vinci Code. I couldn't put it down. I have read a few of the Maeve Binchy books. They are good, long, intricate, gossipy kinds of books. I actually read Angry Housewives Eating BonBons, which was kind of nice, but with an unsatisfying ending.

I aspire to write something one day. I am pretty certain it will be non-fiction. Mark Victor Hansen says that everyone has at least one good book in them. I am sure that I do. I am not sure yet what it will be about, but I think it will have something to do with themes of motherhood, business, service and community.