Books delight me, entice me, tickle me, inform me, entertain me, enlighten me, are spiritual nourishment, keep my brain sharp, introduce me to new concepts. Quite simply, I can’t imagine a life that is not filled to the brim with reading material. Of all of the items in my home, I have more books than any other thing. I grew up reading. My mother used to say I almost always had a book in my hand. She took my sister and me to story hour at the library.  She, my father  and grandmother read to us and we to them. Every babysitter did as well.

The day I had my own library card and could tote precious reading material up the street from what to me, was as much fun as a toy store,  represented a milestone in my life. I was one of the big kids!  I would breeze through them and gobble them up like the brain food that they were. I read everything I could get my hands on. I was weaned on Dr. Seuss. The only ham in the Weinstein household was the kind that came with ‘green eggs’  offered by Sam I am.  Little Golden Books, Heidi, Where The Wild Things Are and The Phantom Tollbooth had their place on bookshelves in our home.  Highlights Magazine was a monthly treat.  Oh how I wish I had kept the original hard cover version.  The volumes of the Funk and Wagnalls Encyclopedia my parents had purchased from a door to door salesman, brought with it a sense of magic that encouraged me to explore the world.   Nancy Drew and the Bobbsey Twins mysteries,  All of A Kind Family,  biographies of Helen Keller and Anne Frank were my  adolescent companions. I looked forward to arrival of the book mobile each year as it pulled into the school parking lot at Pennypacker Park Elementary in my hometown of Willingboro, NJ.

September is Read A New Book Month. It is an invitation to go to a book store or library, order on line via Amazon….whatever your preference, and crack open a fiction or non-fiction door into a new world. Adventure, romance, humor, biography, mystery, self help, motivation, drama, art, music…the genres are seemingly endless.

Some of my favorite reads that laid the groundwork for my spiritual path include:

The Search For Bridey Murphy by Morey Bernstein

Illusions, One, The Bridge Across Forever and Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach

Way of The Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman

Stranger In A Strange Land by Robert Heinlein

A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L’Engle

The Shared Heart by Barry and Joyce Vissell

Hope For The Flowers by Trina Paulus

Woman On The Edge of Time by Marge Piercy

Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel

2150 A.D. by Thea Alexander

Conversations With God by Neale Donald Walsch

The Dragon Doesn’t Live Here Anymore by Alan Cohen

The Kin of Ata Are Waiting For You by Dorothy Bryant

You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay

Even Cowgirls Get The Blues and Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins

More often than not, my nightstand has 2 or 3 books in the rotation; most for pleasure and review.  I carry a book in my briefcase in case the urge to indulge in this healthy addiction, arises.

What’s on your current list?  What would you like to be?

Every Day I Write The Book by Elvis Costello  http://youtu.be/3ybnsxCGg6E

Unwritten by Natasha Bedingfield  http://youtu.be/TtGY4G7II6s