becoming gold

When we read, so many positive things happen. Connections are made. The files of our thoughts become more effectively categorized, documented, and placed into the correct folders of our lives. Despite what's happening around me, I can sit with a book and find a sense of security and calm there.

I feel that with each page we turn, we are in a way purifying ourselves, becoming a truer version, and just possibly...becoming gold.

The following list is what I've been reading over the past couple of years. I'm doing this to have a record for myself (my memory isn't that strong, and I never want to forget some of these treasures), but also to provide a recommendation to others. I stop reading a book unless I'm in love with it. Life is too short to spend time reading rubbish! And there is so much good out there. With that said, I recommend everything on my list.

Also, I still have in my possession pretty much every book on the list...so if you live near me...and you're nice...or you barter for high end coffee or fine pastries...I will happily let you borrow these.

If the book is in BOLD, it was life changing for me. Obviously, every piece has shaped me somehow (gold is very malleable!)...but some of them are extraordinary. Remarkable. 24 Karat.

Every piece of fiction, I always read cover to cover. If I don't love it after a chapter or so...I quit, and it doesn't make my list. As far as non- fiction, if I love the piece, and can tell I want all of it, it's cover to cover. However, with some non-fiction pieces, I've found that I only want or need 'some' of those books...the 3 or 4 small nuggets of gold within. Sometimes there are anecdotes, case studies, etc. that are repetitious or unnecessary for me. With books like that, I use a technique that I call 'panning for gold'. Imagine circulating all of the unwanted, extra words and ideas in a gold pan, until all of the arbitrary sand and sediment floated away down the river. Just those concentrated nuggets are left, and you can quickly keep them for your own! I'll work on a blog post for this, as to exactly how I do it.

So, if you see a 🜚 symbol (it's the alchemical symbol for gold...according to the 'special character list') next to the title, I used the panning for gold technique (which I describe more in this post...click here for it). And those books, I don't own...so you can't borrow them. I get them from the library.

The title I'm reading now or most recently will be at the top of the list. Keep turning those pages!





Reading List:



Man's Search for Meaning - Viktor Frankl


The Irresistible Introvert - Michaela Chung


🜚  A Slap in the Face: Why insults hurt - and why they shouldn't - William Irvine


Capital Gaines - Chip Gaines


Unstoppable:  My Life so Far - Maria Sharapova


🜚  Book Publishing 101 - Martha Maeda


🜚  How to Write a Children's Book and Get it Published - Barbara Seuling


🜚  101 Wines - Gary Vaynerchuk


Crush It! - Gary Vaynerchuk


Jab Jab Jab, Right Hook - Gary Vaynerchuk


Ask Gary Vee - Gary Vaynerchuk


🜚  Captivate - Vanessa Van Edwards


The Thank You Economy - Gary Vaynerchuk


🜚  The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck - Manson


🜚  So Good They Can't Ignore you - Newport


🜚  Mindset - Dweck


🜚  The 4-Hour Chef - Ferriss


🜚  Citizen - Rankine


🜚  The Power of Habit - Duhigg


🜚  The Resilient Farm and Homestead - Ben Falk


The Chicken Chronicles - Walker


🜚  Grow a Little Fruit Tree


🜚  The Geography of Bliss - Weiner


🜚  The Market Gardener - Fortier


🜚  Applied Minds - Madhavan


🜚  Confident Parents Remarkable Kids - Harris


Crush It!  - Gary Vaynerchuk


🜚  Everyday Blessings: Inner work of Mindful Parenting - Kabat-Zinn


🜚  Duct Tape Parenting - Hoefle


The Goldfinch - Tartt


A Man Called Ove - Backman


🜚 30 Lessons for Living - Pillemer


When Things Fall Apart - Chodron


A Long Way Gone - Beah


🜚 The Behavior Gap - Richards


Home Grown: adventures in parenting off the beaten path, unschooling, and reconnecting with the natural world - Hewitt


The Four Agreements - Ruiz


🜚 BioShelter Market Garden - Darrell Fray


Drive - Pink


Black Elk Speaks - Neihardt + Black Elk


🜚  Tools of Titans - Tim Ferriss


Making Space - Hanh


🜚  How to Make Your Money Last - Quinn


Peace is Every Step- Hanh


🜚  Square Foot Gardening - Bartholomew


Peace is Every Breath - Hanh


The Miracle of Mindfulness - Hanh


🜚 All the Money in the World - Vanderkam


Men Explain Things to Me - Solnit


The Way to Rainy Mountain - Momaday


A Father First - Wade


🜚  Raising a Self-Reliant Child - Levine


The Catcher in the Rye - Salinger


The Alchemist - Coelho


We Should All be Feminists - Adichie


Flowers for Algernon - Keyes


Ishmael - Quinn


Experience and Education - Dewey


Jane Eyre - Bronte


American Dreams - Rubio


Call of the Wild - London


Feed - Anderson


Does this Dress Make me Look Fat - Thomas


The Aladdin Factor - Canfield


The One Day Contract - Pitino


The Hours - Cunningham (my favorite novel)


Stones into School - Mortenson


Three Cups of Tea - Mortenson


No Place but Here - Keizer


Falling into Theory - Richter


Will and the World - Greenblatt


A New Earth - Tolle


Deep Economy - Mckibben


Maybe One - Mckibben


How to Talk to Anyone - Lowndes


The Communist Manifesto - Marx


🜚 The Omnivore's Dilemma - Pollan


How to Win Friends and Influence People - Carnegie


The Last Lecture - Pausch


🜚 Note to Self - Buchanan


🜚 What the F - Bergen


I Never met a Story I didn't Like - Snider


The Poet and His Poetry - Frost


Be the Pack Leader - Millan


Learning Outside the Lines - Mooney + Cole


The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian - Alexie


🜚 Tap Dancing to Work: Warren Buffett on Practically Everything - Loomis


Angels and Demons - Brown


Final Harvest - Dickenson


🜚 Jack: Straight From the Gut - Welch


Bringing up Girls - Dobson


Parenting Without Borders - Gross-Loh


Keeping Bees in Towns and Cities - Dixon


🜚 The Mosaic Principle - Lovegrove


🜚 The 80/20 Manager - Koch


The Da Vinci Code - Brown


Dude You're Gonna be a Dad - Pfeiffer


The Archivist - Cooley


Literature: A Pocket Anthology - Gwynn


All Quiet on the Western Front - Remarque


Food Rules - Pollan


Out of the Dust - Hesse


An American Son - Rubio


🜚 Raising a Self-Reliant Child - Levine


Oil and Honey - Mckibben


How Lucky can You Be - Olny


33 Snowfish - Rapp


Honeybee: Lessons from an Accidental Beekeeper - Marchese


Billy Bud and Other Stories - Melville


Antigone, Oedipus the King, and Electra - Sophocles


The Scarlet Letter - Hawthorne


The Global Achievement Gap - Wagner


Maus I - Spiegelman


The Four Quartets - Eliot


Literary Theory - Culler


Leaves of Grass - Whitman


🜚 The Click Moment - Johansson


Home Town Advantage - Mitchell


🜚 The Secret to Peak Productivity - Myles


🜚 Give and Take - Grant


By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept - Coelho


Yellow Raft in Blue Water - Dorris


Of Mice and Men - Steinbeck


The Things They Carried - O'brien


We Make the Road by Walking - Harton + Freire


The Freud Reader - Freud + Gay


Running with Scissors - Burroughs


🜚 Insanely Simple - Segal


Teaching Man - McCourt


Between You + I - Cochrane


Most Common Sales Mistakes - Schiffman


🜚 Payoff - Ariely


Uncommon Learning - Thoreau


Mrs. Dalloway - Woolf


A Room of One's Own - Woolf


The Tao of Pooh - Hoff


Eating Animals - Foer


🜚 A Plea for the Animals - Ricard


🜚 Millennials with Kids - Fromm


Tuck Everlasting - Babbitt


The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail - Lawrence + Lee


Snow White (postmodernism) - Barthelme


Have a little Faith - Albom


🜚 Onward (Starbucks)- Shultz


🜚 Click Millionaires - Fox


Everything We Had - Santoli


Walden and other Writings - Thoreau


The Great Gatsby - Fitzgerald


Eaarth - McKibben


The Rough Guide to Bob Dylan - Williamson



Shakespeare Plays-


As You Like It


Hamlet


King Henry IV part 1


King Henry IV part 2


King Lear


Macbeth


King Richard II


The Merchant of Venice


Othello


Romeo and Juliet


The Tempest


Twelfth Night