I can feel a different sensation run through my body as I even start to write this, like entering sanctum sanctorium kinds :)
As I write out the list, the one thing that clearly stands out is that it's been pretty much subject specific reading this year. A course which prescribes a reading list of fifty books, and has all of them in it's library..well that was sheer bonanza, I shut out all other kinds of reading. A lot of the books were too subject specific to be put on the blog, but here I'm listing all. The ones which are on the blog have the link.
Considering this was one of Wayne Dyers early books, it initially appeared rather elementary, yet as I read I recognized the importance and significance of reiterations. Depending on your own space of readiness, they can talk so many different languages.
The preface reads ' It's a book that aims at eliminating any 'worms' or 'blinders' that may be keeping you from beautiful new experiences, and to discover and choose your own directions.
2.
Conversations with God 1 - Neale Donald Walsch
A book that questions system, one that puts the power back in the hand of the individual. It almost rips through organized religion, societal conditioning, palming off decisions. It also raises some very fundamental questions on living in awareness, in consciousness.
It states how for most of our lives we've lived as the effect of our experiences, and asks if we can now be the cause of them.
It's simple, as well as powerful, and that kind of explains it being on the New York bestseller list for 137 weeks.
3.
The Dance of Anger - Harriet Lerner
Anger is. There's no asking if it's legitimate or not, meaningful or not, pointless or not. It just is.
It's a feeling. If feeling Angry signals a problem, Venting anger does not solve it. The book talks of how one can understand and befriend anger.
Anger exists for a reason and deserves our respect and attention.
Normal styles of managing anger include silent submission, ineffective fighting, blaming and emotional distancing. We need to look at ways in which we betray and sacrifice the self in order to preserve harmony with others.
It is quite amazing how much anger exists and how little it is understood. Way too often, we are marching off into battle without even knowing what the war is all about. Managing anger effectively goes hand in hand with developing a clearer "I" ....knowing yourself better.
4.
Who Moved My Cheese - Dr.Spencer Johnson
It's a small book of simple parables about 'change'. Change which could involve moving out of your comfort zone... moving beyond your fears.... towards achieving what truly fulfills you.
5.
When Breath Becomes Air - Paul Kalanithi
This is a book that touched me so deep, that there's little I can write about it, beyond the adjectives it evokes. The cover page reads....Rattling, Heartbreaking, Beautiful. I'd add Poignant, Honest, Courageous, Incisive. I think I'd include this in the set of existential greats.
6.
The One Minute Manager - Kenneth Blanchard and Spencer Johnson
Simple on principle, it has three basic elements:
1) Goal Setting: Clear goals, something that can be read within a minute, short enough to read and reread them every once in a while to know your behavior matches your goal.
2) Help People Reach Their Full Potential...Catch Them Doing Something Right, and tell them immediately. People who feel good about themselves...Produce Good Results.
3) Reprimand when there's a mistake. Reprimand immediately, and be specific. Talk of the behavior and not the person. Tell people how you 'feel' about what they did wrong and in no uncertain terms.
7.
Conversations With God 2 - Neale Donald Walsch
This is the second in the trilogy, and focuses more on education. It says 'You are teaching your children what to think, instead of how to think'.
He goes on to suggest a curriculum which should include courses like Understanding Power, Peaceful Conflict Resolution, Celebrating Self, Joyous Sexual Expression, Engaging Creativity, and such others. I believe that if these were part of school curriculum, the world would be a different place....like maybe open up the possibilities in Zootopia
8.
Emotional Intelligence - Daniel Goleman
This was a game changer to me. Just to know as clearly as this depicts how IQ differs from EQ and how much it enables and empowers a high level of aware and conscious living.
9. Relationship Strategies E & P - Dr Johm Kappus
This was again a game changer. It tells of how there are two distinct types of personalities; one who use 'language' as the primary mode to communicate, and the other that uses 'action'.
The issue is that we also listen and understand in the language we speak, and that's the fundamental cause for most miscommunication and misunderstanding. Crack that, and you crack a lot :)
10. The Dance of Connection - Harriet Lerner
It's a book that touches some core areas in relationships; talks of how to find your authentic voice in your closest relationships, how to heal the most painful disconnections. Lerner talks of how to navigate our most difficult relationships with integrity, courage and joyous conviction.
11. It's So Easy When You Know How - Harry Morgan
A simple book on understanding ourselves and becoming comfortable with ourselves, and how when we live from this deeper understanding life becomes easy
12. What Makes A Good Session
I can't remember detail, only that I remember thoroughly enjoying the book. I'm hoping I've imbibed, else I'll have to reread :)
13. 50 Psychology Classics - Tom Butler
A collection of insights and inspiration from 50 key books, including Sigmund Freud, Malcom Gladwell, Daniel Goleman, Carl Jung, Skinner and others
14. Jonathan Livingston Seagull - Richard Bach
Yes, this was actually on the list. It's been one of my favorites for a long long time..but ofcourse the idea of the individual, and following your own path was yet nascent back then. Guess it was at instinctual level back then...just makes so much more sense now.
15. Healers on Healing - Edited by Richard Carlson
The book has 37 original essays by some of the world's leaders in healing providing their own insights and experiences. And rather than focus on diverse techniques, the writer seems to seek for that basic principle behind all the different approaches. It includes essays from Elizabeth Kubler Ross, Louisa Hayes, Hugh Prather, Ram Dass and many others.
16. Counselling for Toads - Robert de Board
I simply loved this book. It's based off the classic 'The wind in the willows', and while counselling specific, has a lovely style of writing, with Toad as central character, and his friends Rat, Mole and Badger very present too.
17. Open Marriage - Nena & George Neill
The book talks of an 'open marriage' as the space that marriage as an institution could ideally evolve into. The 'openess' being on varying facets of the relationship, in fact they list eight. From currentt stand point it may seem radical and aspirational, but with some open mindedness, actually lots (but doable) it's hugely enabling and empowering, and hopefully that's the direction we're moving in.
18. The Gift of Therapy - Irvin Yalom
The book gives 85 tips for counselling, drawn from 42 years of Irvin's own experience as a psychotherapist, and made for some fascinating reading. I took a lot of notes :)
19. Personal Counselling - J M Fuster
This was like a counselling guide book, focus on skills and technique
20. Gestalt Counselling in Action - Petruska Clarkson
The more I read about Gestalt, the more I'm falling in love with it. The book is designed more from a counselling perspective. But Gestalt itself...there's no single english term that can translate what it stands for. It's about the fullness of experience as human, through life and in each single moment. About being whole.
That ends the list. One absolutely good thing that's come out of writing this post, is that I'm off the hook on thinking I had lagged on reading. I was so chaffing myself on that, but now I'm chilling some.
See, a straight off plus to recaps :)
