Three books that changed my life.

My neighbor and voxalicious friend IslandGirl, has suggested a post for me. Is she psychic? Did she know I've been fighting blogger's block for the past few weeks? Whatever the reason...IslandGirl, this one is for you.

Here are three books that changed my life:

Ask and It Is Given.
Jerry & Esther Hicks

As you might know from some earlier posts, this book sort of flung itself at me back in March. It gave me a fresh perspective about the same old shit. That just does not happen every day.  The basic law of attraction. Explained in such a simple, spiritual way...that I nearly felt like an idiot. You get what you expect. If you expect success, if you expect failure. Whatever you believe will happen, typically does. You manifest your destiny, each time you speak a true desire (or a fear). While I think there are tangible limits to this notion and it's been made popular and commercially lucrative with The Secret, I believe in this simple universal law. It was the right book, at the right time, to lend weight to something I already felt, but couldn't assign any spiritual insight to. I've been increasingly confident, aware and mindful of my thoughts ever since. Brings newfound meaning to that old adage, "be careful what you wish for."

Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry
Mildred D. Taylor

Sister Kathy...you'll never know what you did to me, that day you began reading this to our 5th grade class. I always thought there was something odd about being read to at the age...but Sister Kathy always had a way of making the unusual...meaningful. She took the plot, the story of a African-American family in the deep South in the thirties, and made it come alive. To this day, I swear if I ever met Cassie Logan, she would have Sister Kathy's voice. Mildred D. Taylor wove an amazing story, and left me starving for more. But the book changed my life, because until then I never understood that writing in my diary was writing. I didn't get that the short stories I created out of boredom during long house-bound summers were something other than an odd hobby. I had always been a "reader." Mildred D. Taylor, Sister Kathy, Cassie Logan, and that amazing story gave me the desire to become a "writer."

 
The Souls of Black Folk
W.E.B Du Bois

My Dad gave it to me as a Christmas present when I was 13. I remember unwrapping it, and pretending to be excited about it. I did love books, but this one, at first pass, seemed to have the look of a history textbook. It felt like an assignment. I read his inscription on the inside (a script that mine now almost completely resembles)...and I put the book away, promising to read it, "one day."

One day came about six years later, during a cold, rough winter when the transit system between home and school almost always promised a commute that was at least an hour. I opened that book, and was mesmerized. I recall especially the poem that prefaces chapter ten:

I didn't understand it's greater purpose at 13. I did at nineteen...and more and more every day. Thank you, Dad.

So there you have it. The three books that changed my life.  IslandGirl, I owe you one. :))