I am pretty open minded when it comes to material.  My library consists of a variety of genres that have piqued my interest at one time or another.  Ever so often I will peruse the shelves and post the unwanteds or unneeded onto online sales or trading sites.  There I can trade them for books I have yet to read, or have read and would like my own copy of.  Many a gift has come via the book swapping sites.

You will find I stick to a few genres:

• technical books on art and writing
• inspirational books
• self help
• spirituality (Buddhist, American Indian and pagan oriented)
• shamanism
• history, past and recent (mainly Native American and Carribean)
• some social issues
• some psychology/sociology/philosophy
• some women’s issues
• some humor
• magic
• some physics and quantum mechanics
• erotica
• poetry
• sci fi
• fantasy

Hmmm… that’s a lot more that I thought.  The order presented is not necessarily the order in which I prefer the topics.  I don’t think I could put them in order of preference since it really depends on my mood.  Visit my current reading page, see what I am reading now and feel free to offer some suggestions!

Favorite Books

I think my all time favorite book series have to be Dune by Frank Herbert, nose to nose with Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern.  I have been reading and re-reading those bad boys since high school!

The funniest would have to be Virgins by Caryl Rivers.  I still have the copy I read in the back of Mrs. Rodriguez’s English class.  I was going to let my partner read it, but got him his own copy instead.  Mine is falling apart and is taped up to the point it’s barely recognizable as a paperback.  Be that as it may, I refuse to get rid of it.

By way of spirituality – well, my first steps were with Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach and I have been growing ever since. The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz was a good read, albeit a bit repetitious.  I have learned a lot from Cheri Huber’s books as well as Anne Wilson Schaef’s Living in Process.  I thoroughly enjoyed much of Michael Harner’s The Shaman’s Way teaches as well as what I learned from Henriette Anne Klauser’s Writing on Both Sides of the Brain.

I also learned much from Shamanic Reiki by Llyn Roberts and Robert Levy.  I borrowed it from a Shaman friend who blends the healing traditions of her Buryat ancestry with the healing modalities available to us all today.  She is truly amazing!  Anyway, the book was not disappointing.  There is always something new to learn!

Vine Deloria Jr’s Red Earth, White Lies was a fascinating rebuttal to the current theories of the population of the Americas, humanity’s cross over the Bering Strait and the paleo-indian’s supposed murder to extinction of the mega-fauna present at the time of crossing.  What is so interesting about his rebuttal is that he bases himself on native ancient history an oral tradition, which has never been taken into account since science initial reference was christian.  It was a really good read…

As for techniques and art, being that I am into ATCs and altered art in general, I must say my favorite so far has been Artist Trading Card Workshop or Collage Lost and Found or …

You know, I don’t think I have any books where I have not found something new to learn or something different to try out- except maybe Ivan Van Sertima’s They Came Before Columbus and his recent ego balm, Early America Revisited.