for melissa -- the book i was telling you about.

Quoted: Amazon.com: Letters to a Young Poet: Books: Rainer Maria Rilke,Stephen Mitchell by Rainer Maria Rilke,Stephen Mitchell

a really good read. large part of this book is about a family's journey through the process of therapy and while the family is fictional the issues talked about are drawn from the therapist's (author's) experience of dealing with various families in his practice. there are so many good points here about how our "families of origin" (as they call the families we grow up in) influence our lives and our relationships. there are also lots of good points about relationships in general. they offer some hypothesis on why relationships erode and lead to divorce. as much as everyones situation is different there are certain patterns that keep re-occurring which can either 1) help eliminates a lot of the mystery that is usually associated with this stuff or 2) expand a point of view that is mostly based on the blame. i highly recommend it!

Quoted: Amazon.com: The Family Crucible: Books: Augustus Y. Napier,Carl Whitaker by Augustus Y. Napier,Carl Whitaker

damn this is a good story. i've just finished reading it. leo tolstoy wrote it from a perspective of a 17 year old girl who falls in love with a man twice her age. after reading through some of his biography it looks like he drew this story from a personal experience. there are some great descriptions of the russia's country side and a little bit of the st petersburg glamour life, but mostly it is about the young girl's emotions through the course of their relationship. this is so well written that it makes me wonder if tolstoy was a woman :) but then again being able to create such characters perhaps makes him one of the greatest.

Quoted: Amazon.com: Family Happiness and Other Stories (Thrift Edition): Books: Leo Tolstoy by Leo Tolstoy

if it wasn't for my beautiful and brilliant friend nikki chau who knows when and if i would've run into this book. this is a very quick read. and you can get a copy for $6.

i loved it. it is a beautifully written book. viktor frankl (the author) survived concentration camps and this is his personal account on it. while there is some description of the harshness that prisoners had to go through most of the book is about the author's internal struggle to find the meaning and reason to keep on living despite the suffering. by sharing this struggle with the other prisoners he managed to help some of them find their meaning to keep on going. viktor frankl was an md before the war and after the war he continued to practice psychotherapy for a long time. he founded his own "niche" called logotherapy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logotherapy).

Quoted: Amazon.com: Man's Search for Meaning: Books: Viktor E. Frankl by Viktor E. Frankl

to prepare for my sahara adventures.

Quoted: Amazon.com: The Secret of the Sahara: Kufara: Books: Rosita Forbes,Harry, Sir Johnston by Rosita Forbes,Harry, Sir Johnston

good source on iron rich foods.

Quoted: Iron Rich Foods, Eaten Daily, Can Fortify Your Blood Which Can Become Weak From a Lack of Foods Rich in Iron. We Need High Iron Foods

a paragraph from this book that steinbeck wrote in 1952:

"our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mind and spirit of a man. nothing was ever created by two men. there are no good collaborations, whether in music, in art, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. once the miracle of creation has taken place the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. the preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man.

and this i believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most precious thing in the world. and this i would fight for: a freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. and this i might fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual."

Quoted: Amazon.com: East of Eden : (Centennial Edition): Books: John Steinbeck by John Steinbeck

you don't have to read 600 page east of eaden or grapes of wrath to experience what the great writing is all about. this is steinbeck's second book and it is already brilliant. and only 200 pages long.

Quoted: John Steinbeck

i love this, and i am fit into the second category derek :)