Tuesday, February 16, 2010
I decided long ago that library fines are my way of donating to the public library system. This policy allows me to continue the super-nerdy behaviour I displayed as a book-hungry youth. In grade six I left the Black Mountain, North Carolina, school library after our weekly class visits with a teetering pile of books […]
Debbie Ford‘s book, The Secret of the Shadow: The Power of Owning Your Whole Story, packs a double-whammy of interest for me: empowerment + story, two of my favourite things. I’m finding the book to be exactly what I need for excavating gems from the hard earth of my past so I can really move […]
Judith and Christopher Plant have grown their dedication to making the world a better place into a successful publishing company – New Society Publishers. Years of walking their talk and publishing practical guides for positive social and environmental change has brought them resounding respect from the sustainability and publishing communities. New Society is the first […]
Surroundings and atmosphere play a big role in the lives of sensitive people. Small factors make big differences. Christopher Alexander and his co-authors created a book I consider to be a bible for the sensitive soul in search of peaceful, nourishing surroundings. A Pattern Language, published in 1977, is volume two of a three-volume set […]
I’m hard at play today. Lisa Sonora Beam – author of The Creative Entrepreneur: A DIY Visual Guidebook for Making Business Ideas Real – and I are busy helping me discover a future that has the exact shape of me. Her book rings with her strong voice and clear instructions, making it easy for me […]
Leonard Felder’s book adds his sure, comforting, and erudite voice to the growing chorus of people championing sensitivity and oddness. Fitting in is Overrated: The Survival Guide for Anyone Who Has Ever Felt Like an Outsider proceeds calmly to dismantle inclinations to remain hidden, urging us instead to develop whatever it is that makes us […]
Preparing for an earthquake is too freaky. I only accomplished it by taking what I called nanosteps, steps so infinitesimal I was done before the heebie-jeebies set in. Author and artist SARK, in her book Make Your Creative Dreams Real, calls such small steps microMOVEments. Robert Maurer has gone even further and written a book […]
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
The highly sensitive people I know who are thriving are all self-employed. Is this a coincidence? Maybe. But maybe not. Self-employment has a lot to offer HSPs, and many of our innate tendencies make us suited for taking up the reins of our own business. Self-employment doesn’t need to be a gigantic, red-tape-festooned, complicated step. […]
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
“Dave Hickey’s prose transports are like an eye attached to a butterfly attached to a rocketship…” ~ Lawrence Weschler Dave Hickey‘s résumé is impressive. He’s written for Harper’s Magazine, Rolling Stone, and Artforum, plus many other publications. He’s been the Executive Editor of Art in America magazine. He’s owned and directed an art gallery. He’s […]
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
William Gibson is well-known for his science fiction writing, which I love, but my favourite book of his is a non-science fiction novel. Pattern Recognition‘s heroine, Cayce Pollard, is highly sensitive, and that plus Gibson’s mentally chewy writing has made me a happy re-reader of this novel. Cayce Pollard is highly sensitive in a very […]
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
British writer Tim Moore has charmed me thoroughly. He writes irreverent, utterly hilarious travel memoirs with the twist that he’s frequently and unabashedly incompetent at what he sets out to do. My favourite Tim Moore adventure is told in French Revolutions, in which he hoists his unfit body onto a recently purchased bicycle and sets […]
When a friend recommended John Allen Boone’s Kinship with All Life to me fifteen years ago, I was intrigued enough to track it down. First published in 1954, this odd treasure was a revelation to read, not because Boone’s ideas about the ability of animals to communicate with us are new at the concept level, […]
