Bookshelf

It occurred to me that my frequent references to books would be a lot more helpful if I created a consolidated list along with a brief explanation of what I find particularly useful about each.

Unless it’s out of print, all the books will be affiliate-linked to Amazon so that you have a central place to read other reviews, double check for a new edition, get an idea of price  etc.  I would highly recommend that you check your local used bookstore first before buying any of them new.  I also thought it would be helpful to link to any author sites that have relevant additional resources so I’ll be adding those to this page as well.

• The Art of Possibility by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander: More about attitudes and philosophy than skills it’s both intellectual and an easy read. I found myself seeing new ways to combine ideas so I would recommend it for the creatively stuck.  If you’d rather watch than read, most of the key principles and even some of the same stories are in Benjamin Zander’s 2009 presentation at the World Economic Forum.  Conveniently on Youtube.
• The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron – I don’t much care for her concept of ‘morning pages’ although I’ve heard they work great for some. Regardless there are some great ideas for getting in touch with your creativity and getting a little more fun in your life. There is an Artist’s Way website with forums and other extras.
• The Creative Habit by Twyla Tharp – although her career as a choreographer plays in the background, this book is really about creativity, artistic work habits, and dealing with criticism which are all things we all deal with whether we’re bankers or ballet dancers.  Her chapter on getting an A in Failure is probably one of the most motivating I’ve read on stretching your limits.
• Design Your Destiny by Guy Finley: a slim volume that is a very gentle read and pertinent enough that I have the 12 rules typed out and taped above my desk. This is a great introductory self-improvement book for those that are a little leery of that section of the bookstore.
• Developing Intuition by Shakti Gawain: A great guide for learning to let go and follow your intuition. It’s not an easy thing (at least for me) and in times of stress I’m likely to revert so I come back to this book for re-education when I need it.
• Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss.  Yeah, that’s right; it’s a book about punctuation and I’m labeling it as self-help.  I think we all have some insecurities about punctuation (and spelling) and I know that my continued inability to put commas where my mother thought they should be has always been a source of mystery and frustration. Until I read this book and discovered that there weren’t nearly as many real ‘rules’ as people had tried to teach me!  Turns out I wasn’t any more ‘wrong’ than anybody else. My self-esteem went up 20 points just by reading that one chapter.
• The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber – regardless of whether you see yourself as an entrepreneur or not there are some interesting exercises for you to start seeing how many roles you wear and which ones you go out of your way to avoid.  Unlike some of his other work, this one is an easy read.
• Feng Shui: Arranging Your Home to Change Your Life by Kirsten M. Lagatree – I wouldn’t typically recommend a feng shui book, even though there are several on my shelf, because it’s not everyone’s cup of tea.  However, this slim volume, one of the first feng shui books written by a Westerner has something else going for it.  The author takes the time to go into the basic psychology and geology of China that contributed to the age-old practice and gives more answers as to why feng shui developed than any other book I’ve read on the subject.
• Finding Your Own North Star by Martha Beck: It’s definitely a classic and probably has some of the best exercises for figuring out what you love to do versus what you think you should love to do. Martha Beck’s Blog
• Five Wishes: How Answering One Simple Question Can Make Your Dreams Come True by Gay Hendricks – a very slim book, you can get through it in a weekend afternoon if you so desire.  If I had to boil it down to a single sentence, this book asks you to ask yourself if you are living the life you want in a way that will leave you with no regrets when you exit.  Another good one to borrow or lend.
• The Heart of the Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman – he’s written several books on this core theme so you may find one that fits you better.  It doesn’t really matter though, the idea is that there are five key ways of showing we love someone and we each have an order of priority.  If that doesn’t match up with the recipient or vice versa than the message is not received.  This is true for friends, lovers, family members.  It’s a great thing to be mindful of and you can probably get the gist of it directly from the 5 Love Languages website.
• The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell – this will remind you of some of those college textbooks that seem to be written with the intent of making you re-read each paragraph at least three times. However, despite the 1950′s writing style there is a great deal of interesting thought and ideas surrounding conforming, struggle and the general plot of any adventure story (or adventurous life.)
• Just for Fun: The Story of an Accidental Revolutionary by Linus Torvalds and David Diamond – if you’re not a techie geek you may not recognize the name;  Linus Torvalds is the inventor of the Linux operating system, but the book is not about computers.  It’s about doing the things you love and are intrigued by and the bounty that can come from giving it away.  It’s also has an interesting theme on economic development: how entertainment and fun things can be the most profitable.  He also has a blog.
• Love Will Find You by Kathryn Alice – some parts of this get a little silly, like the use of ‘love magnets’ which are really just exercises, not incantations. What I like about it though is for those still single or newly single it doesn’t try to reform you to ‘get a man’ but instead suggests that everything will happen at the right time and just offers some gentle encouragement to be open to it when it does. It’s a nice switch from most of the I’m single, now what books out there.
• Loving Yourself by Daphne Rose Kingma – as much about being yourself and understanding who that is as much as anything. It’s a lighter alternative to Self Esteem but covers some of the same introductory ground.
• Making a Living Without a Job by Barbara J. Winter:  This is getting a little dated in the references to offline ways of doing business but the principles are timeless. This is the book that showed me a model for having  more than one money-earning passion at a time. Everything else I had read prior implied 40 hours of doing basically one profession.  Note: there is an updated edition coming out in August 2009.  More from Barbara Winter at JoyfullyJobless.com
• The Power of Intention by Wayne Dyer – another one that can and should be re-read over the years.  It’s as much about how to stop stopping yourself as it is finding what you were meant to do.
• The Power of Patience by M.J. Ryan -  Lots of tips and tools to gain more patience and maybe even recognize that you have more than you give yourself credit for.
• Refuse to Choose! by Barbara Sher – a must read for people with divergent passions they want to pursue as careers; like mountain climbing and needlepoint. While I don’t agree with some of her advice on what to do with it, as I think you need to enjoy being a consultant as much as what you consult on, the information on being a ‘scanner’ is invaluable.
• Self-Esteem: A Proven Program of Cognitive Techniques for Assessing, Improving, and Maintaining Your Self-Esteem by Matthew McKay and Patrick Fanning -This is probably one of my favorite self improvement books; for starters it’s written by psychologists not gurus and most importantly it doesn’t presume that everyone has incredibly low self esteem but rather that the majority of people could stand some improvement in this area
• Shelter for the Spirit: Create Your Own Haven in a Hectic World by Victoria Moran – the importance of having a truly comfortable home, how to get there and finding the balance.
• Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert -98% of this book is fabulous as it discusses the research into and science of happiness.  The last chapter where he tries to come up with how to get it falls extremely flat. So I’d recommend reading everything bu the last twenty pages or so…
• This Time I Dance!by Tama J. Kieves: The story of a Harvard grad lawyer who leaves it behind to become a writer. What’s most refreshing is that she shows how long this can take and the ups and downs of pursuing your dreams.  Even driven by intuition and conviction there are days of doubt and the money doesn’t always come in as fast as some authors would have you believe.  But she got there in the end and you will too.  More at her resources page.
• This Year I Will…: How to Finally Change a Habit, Keep a Resolution, or Make a Dream Come True also by M.J. Ryan -a small compendium on how to keep a resolution or finally break past that stopping point of a long held goal whether it’s getting fit or finally cleaning out the attic.
• The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality by His Holiness, the Dalai Lama – similar to the book  on Feng Shui, this one intrigues me because the Dalai Lama goes into the role science played in the early days of Tibetan Buddhism and how that became solidified into custom over exploration over the centuries.  It is, however, more than a look backwards and does give an easy read into how science, religion, and spirituality overlap and coexist in the modern age.
• Write It Down, Make It Happen by Henriette Anne Klauser – all sorts of writing exercises aimed at learning more about yourself, your goals, and letting go.  One of my favorite New Year’s rituals is modified from one described in this book -writing down 3 things you want to leave your life and 3 things that you want to enter it.
• Writing Life Stories by Bill Rohrbach – even if you have no interest in writing your memoirs right now, the exercises in this book are great ones for retracing ideas and the emphasis of memory.  In helping to call out the details of a story or a place, they also help to bring forth the forgotten good parts (or the bad parts) so that you have a more complete picture of your past.