Inspiring Books (any topic)

[Hopalong]

Just been watching an extraordinary old woman on BookSpan, and I'm eager to buy her book. Such a tale of bravery and determination...and she's so alive in her late 80s she practically sends off sparks.

Behind Enemy Lines, by Marthe Cohn

I love rousing heroine stories. So much literature about women features depression, powerlessness, and confusion. Something like this, where a woman just plunges in and actually lives a heroic life, is refreshing. (And she wrote her book starting at age 79.) 

Hops

[WRITE]

I love Maeterlinck's Bluebird of Happiness and Micheal Fairless/ Margaret Barber's The Roadmender. A kid's book called 'Big Mister' by William Rainer. Katherine White's Onward and upward in the Garden. Much poetry especially Robert Frost

I'll put some Frost now before I go get ready for my evening out, it fits the flat mood some of us are having as we rebuild from a painful time & wait to reassess and reaccess our happier steady emotions:

ACQUAINTED WITH THE NIGHT

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
O luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.


                    ******

Which reminds me of something more hopeful about walking too:

DUST OF SNOW

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

[WRITE]

picked up this gem in Borders yesterday:

You don't need a title to be a leader

Mark Sanborn

about how you can impact your whole organisation/ community etc with positive affirmative attitude.

Harry Truman quote: It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.   

( quotes are a big source of inspiration to me too )

TGoing to try a new church today, a local Baptist.

[gratitude28]

Since we are talking about books,
did anyone read Memories of My Melancholy Whores? What the heck did you think of it? My husband and I both read it and had no idea what to think.

PS, I love so many books, it is hard to choose... I love the poet William Carlos Williams. I lvoe Pushkin. I love Lermontov (so dark and sad). Lately I read a lot with the kids... back to Phantom Tollbooth and the Dahl stories. Am also reading Dahl's adult stories (creepy and awesome).
Love, Beth

[movinon]

Anytime I need a pick-me-up, I put in my audio version of

Succulent Wild Woman by SARK

Movinon

[Samm]

I'm not sure what you are looking for here, but my favorite book of all time, the one I loan out with the hope of never getting it back so I can go buy a new one and loan it out and never get it back, etc, etc, etc.  is :

Illusions  by Richard Bach

Absolutely breathtaking!!

~dragonsamm~

[gratitude28]

Samm, isn't Richard Bach Steven King??? I think that was his earlier pseudonym. I would love to check it out... will do so.
Love, Beth

[dragonsamm]

Gratitude.

STEVEN KING??????  You gotta be kidding!!

Doesn't matter, the material is great. Bach has lots of books out, I've read most of them and would read them all again (if they weren't all packed up right now!).   

Great stuff!
 ~dragonsamm~

[moonlight52]

Hi dragonsamm ,

I looked up the author he writes about nonduality .His books look very interesting

MOON

[Portia]

dragonsamm thanks    http://www.barefootsworld.net/illusions.html

The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's life.
Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof.

The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.

Every person, all the events of your life, are there because you have drawn them there. What you choose to do with them is up to you. 

[Brigid]

A very small, short book that I read a couple of years ago was very inspiring to me and I return to it frequently when I feel my life unraveling.

Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart--Thirty True Things You Need to Know Now

By Gordon Livingston, M.D.  He is a psychiatrist who lost 2 sons in a 13 month period--one to suicide and the other to leukemia.  This book is the result of how he got through that and the legacy it has left for him about how to approach the rest of his life.

Brigid

[gratitude28]

Oh Brigid, the thought of losing loved ones like that is almost paralyzing to me. I don't know if I could even read the book now... (Soemtimes I do the head in the sand thing).

Moon, was I wrong then about Bach?  I will look it up and see too. What idid you find?

Love, Beth

[dragonsamm]

Yes, Portia, my favorite is the one about the butterfly.  I also understand this one:

 There is no such thing as a problem without a gift for you in its hands. You seek problems because you need their gifts.

But I have no idea how to take control of my life and thus understand how to use this information!!

 

~dragonsamm~

[gratitude28]

OK, I am a ding dong. Richard Bachman is Stephen King.

Moon is on-target about Richard Back... I found his bio in Wikipedia.

Sorry to be a pain. I can't stand to leave little things dangling.
Love, Beth

[moonlight52]

(((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((Hops Write Beth Movin Samm Portia Brigid)))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))

I was told once "Moon only you can make your life good" .

It took me years to understand this and now that I do I understand the gift within the "problem".

Without blaming or judgment without struggle a sort of happy sad feeling but the gratitude for the capacity of compassion for self and others is great.

I would like to say I do this all the time but really this is so new to me the connection is still on off more on.

This process is like an awakening to see joy to feel love to embrace life now.This board has made such a transformation possible for so many.

 Love to you

Portia and Dragonsamm This writer looks interesting (Richard Bachman )

p.s I am reading 2  books right now switching back and forth I love it when I can do that I tried 3 at once but that did not work a little too ocd huh