that have Changed My Life

1. Fluffy stuff it wasn't that important that I remember afterward. This includes a lot of enjoyable reads (as well as trash I wish I could go back and un-read ;-)
2. Books that were helpful, and I remembered later. Nifty conversation starters among this bunch, as well as some good grist for sharin'.
3. Works that flat out rocked my world. Wisdom that I want to remember every day for the rest of my life, yet often eludes me when I need it most.

This book list is all about that third category. Every single one of these books has changed my life in a profound way. Some expanded the way that I look at things: myself, others, the world at large. Others were incredibly useful, giving me much needed tools to help me do things that were important to me. And a few were just downright inspirational, making me want to live in the world with eyes shining and heart open.

I've tried to arrange the list for your convenience, i.e. in order of what I'm guessing will be the most immediately useful to you, not the personal impact on my life. In fact, there are many books that have greatly influenced me that aren't shown here at all. Some are omitted because they are too specialized (like some professional treatises), others are too dense (like some college textbooks), and still others because they aren't well written (ur, also like some college textbooks ;-) There's also a lot great fiction I haven't mentioned because, while they were engrossing and stimulating reads at the time, they didn't actually have a lasting effect on my life.

Anyhoo, I hope this wisdom contained in these volumes moves you as much as it has me. At the moment it is just a list. However, when I have some time to get around to it I'd like to write a one page summary of each of the books, as well as a short blurb on how it affected me.

Enjoy!

Sincerely,
Kim E Lumbard

Request for Feedback

Thanks!
Kim

P.S. By the way, I frequently write notes like this one to remind myself 
what I want to write or how I want to change the text.
The notes are often cryptic; feel free to ignore them.

1. How We Choose To Be Happy by Rick Foster and Greg Hicks
2. Non-Violent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg
3. Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman
4. Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman. Also Vital Lies, Simple Truths
5. In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan. Also The Omnivore's Dilemma
6. Small Is Beautiful by E. F. Schumacher. Also Small is Still Beautiful
7. If by Rudyard Kipling. Here is the short poem online
8. The Two-Income Trap by Elizabeth Warren and Amelia Tyagi
9. Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin
10. Please Understand Me II by David Keirsey
11. Crucial Conversations by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler
12. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. Also How to Stop Worrying and Start Living
13. The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People by Steven Covey. Also First Things First
14. That's Not What I Meant! by Deborah Tannen. Also You Just Don't Understand. Actually, read anything by Tannen, she just rocks that much
15. The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz
16. The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint
17. Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill and Arthur Pell (for the Revised Edition)
18. Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus by John Gray
19. Consilience by E. O. Wilson. Also The Ants and On Human Nature
20. Truth in Comedy by Del Close
21. Teaching with the Brain In Mind by Eric Jensen
22. Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson Here's an excellent modern english translation
23. How to Argue and Win Every Time by Gerry Spence. Also Give Me Liberty and Seven Simple Steps to Personal Freedom
24. The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom
25. Rapid Development by Steve McConnell. Also Code Complete
26. Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. Also Collapse
27. The Art of Happiness by The Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler
28. How The Mind Works by Stephen Pinker. Also The Language Instinct and The Blank Slate. Basically, Pinker says all the truths everyone needs to hear but few can bring themselves to believe.
29. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Also Creativity
30. The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm. Also Escape From Freedom
31. Asimov on Numbers by Isaac Asimov. Also The Gods Themselves and the Foundation series, as well as several hundred other books to choose from ;-)
32. Getting to Yes by Bruce Patton, William Ury, and Roger Fisher
33. Chicken Soup For The Soul by Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen. Also many Chicken Soup titles
34. The Nurture Assumption by Judith Rich Harris
35. The Mating Mind by Geoffrey Miller
36. When Things Start To Think by Neil Gershenfeld
37. Good to Great by Jim Collins. Also Built to Last
38. The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield
39. The Gift of Fear by Gavin De Becker
40. Dealing with People You Can't Stand by Rick Brinkman and Rick Kirschner
41. The Extended Phenotype by Richard Dawkins. Also The Selfish Gene
42. Essays by Michel de Montaigne
43. The Wisdom of the Enneagram by Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson
44. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
45. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn
46. The Buying of the President by Charles Lewis
47. Altas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Also The Virtue of Selfishness
48. Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E Frankl
49. The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson. Also Snow Crash
50. Neuromancer by William Gibson
51. Food Politics by Marion Nestle
52. Don't Sweat the Small Stuff by Richard Carlson
53. The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
54. South Beath Diet by Arthur Agatson
55. The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success by Deepak Chopra
56. Animal Farm by George Orwell
57. Agile Project Management with Scrum by Ken Schwaber
58. Calculus Made Easy by Silvanus Thompson
59. The Republic by Plato
60. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig
61. Molecular Biology of the Gene by James D Watson et al
62. Odyssey by Homer

Something on Diabetes epidemic.  CDC?
Psychology  CBT?  Berne's TA?
Affluenza?
Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations?  Might be too inaccessible
Fast Food Nation?  Doesn't seem necessary with Food Politics
Third World
Germany / Cold War
Joy of Sex
Tantric Sex
Little Book of Orgasms
American Sex Cookbook
Last Lion
Feynman Lecture Series of Physics?  Too dense.
  How about The Elegant Universe?  A Brief History of Time?
Statistics book?
The Mind's I
I am a Strange Loop
Godel Escher Bach
Red Queen
Viral Marketing book.  Freakonomics?
  Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell?
Bagavhad Gita
Book on writing from college class.  Name?
Wealth of Nations?  Too dry
That prehistory book
Darwin's Dangerous Idea
Medusa and the Snail
The Alchemist
Which Kurt Vonnegut?
Which Leon Uris?  From Beirut to Jerusalem?
Aesop's Fables
Jupiter Jones?