Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Permission Slip: Never to Read Good Books

Life is too short for me to have long reading lists of books I think I should read, for whatever reason, including that I think I would enjoy it. I was going to just put the citation for my latest "note to self" book, but I decided to unload the entire reading list that I carry around in my Palm Pilot. I have permission NEVER to read these books. But, now that the list is here, I can always look here if I need something to read.

The book listed on my scrap of paper is from this Sunday's New York Times Business section in an article called Innovative Minds Don't Think Alike. The book is Made To Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip and Dan Heath, 2007.

The sideways string of queries that comes to me with all my attention on reading these days is: what does an author have to do these days to get their book published? Is it easier or harder than in previous times? And do electronic media and the ease of inter library loan affect book sales greatly? Is publishing (of books) still a lucrative business? Will the authoring of books as a creative endeavor cease to be possible except for one's own edification?

The list from the Palm:
Diet for a New America
Diet for a Small Planet
Stolen Harvest
Diabetes Solution
Phantoms in the Brain
Walking the Tiger - Peter Levine
Passing - Nella Larson
Unweaving the Rainbow - Dawkins
Remarkable Recovery
Emotional Intelligence
Spontaneous Healing
Cancer as a Turning Point - LeShan
Minding the Body, Mending the Mind
Love and Survival
Reviving Ophelia
Prozac Nation
When Things Fall Apart - Pema Chodron
Getting Comfortable with Uncertainty - Pema Chodron
Silent Spring - Rachel Carson
The Art of Happiness
On Doctoring
The Minds of Billy Milligan
The lost art of Healing
Coyote Medicine
Chicken Soup and Other Folk Remedies
Rx for Living
Best American Science Writing
Botany of Desire
Potatoes not Prozac
Toxic Psychiatry - Breggon
Loving Kindness - Soltzman
Body Outlaws
The Body Project
CUNT
The Hero's Journey - Campbell
The Power of Myth - Campbell
The Four Fold Way: Walking the Paths of the Warrior, Teacher, Healer and Visionary - Anglese Arrien Ph.D.
Consumers Guide to Effective Environmental Choices - Union of Concerned Scientist
My Grandfathers Finger
Fried Green Tomatoes
The Mother Tongue - Bill Bryson
Significant Others - Craig Stanford
The White Bone
The Lost Sisterhood - Ingerham
Holy Blood, Holy Grail - Ingerham
The Benefactor - Susan Sontag
Death Kit - Susan Sontag
Volcano Lover - Susan Sontag
In America - Susan Sontag
I, etc. - Susan Sontag
Illness as a Metaphor - Susan Sontag
Refuge - Terry Tempest Williams
Secret Life of Bees
2150 AD
ProEvo
Cold Mountain
All About Love
The Kin of Ata are Waiting for You - Dorothy Bryant
The Way of The Peaceful Warrior - Dan Millman
The Giver - Lois Lowry
Waiting for Godot

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