Have you ever had the experience where you were plagued by a problem or were facing a challenging time in life, and suddenly you find just the right book or the right article to help you find the answers to your dilemma? It has happened to me so many times that I have lost count. I think it is divine intervention. It may be that I am open to finding direction and then the universe provides. Regardless of how it happens, I am thankful.
Books have been known for a long time to have power to change a life. Bibliotherapy is the term for this. It sometimes is called Book Therapy. It is a creative arts therapy that uses specific reading texts to help with various issues. You may not be in therapy, but books can really help make a difference in your life.
The books can be fiction or nonfiction. The Little Paris Bookshop by French author, Nina George, is a charming tale about Monsieur Perdu who is the proprietor of a bookstore that is housed in a barge on the Seine. He sees himself as a “literary apothecary” because he intuits the exact book a customer needs; he “prescribes” novels for the hardships of life. It seems that finding the right book is universal. For the remainder of the book, Perdu sets out to find his long-lost love as he navigates his bookstore barge down the French rivers dispensing books and wisdom along the way. This work of fiction is a delightful French adventure that denotes the power of books.
My friend, L, and I started a nonfiction book club at the beginning of the Covid Pandemic. I shared this with you in the past. It is still going strong because it has been so powerful in our lives. The topics have educated us in health, wealth, and happiness. Not all the books have been great, yet there are always nuggets of wisdom in each book. However, there are some books, just the right books, that have been life changing for each of us or both of us. In Martha Beck’s The Way of Integrity, Finding the Path to Your True Self, Ms. Beck claims that books are teachers, soul guides. She states on page 42, “Reading is the way I’ve met most of my life teachers, and clients often tell me that just when they felt most confused, the perfect book seems to ‘throw itself off the shelf’ and into their attention.” Again, the power of just the right book signifies their importance in our lives.
The Way of Integrity has been a meaningful book for us. A Life in the Light, Meditations on Impermanence by Mary Pipher is another. Silver Sage Sisters, you will identify with her memoir because you too have walked the same path as she in years’ past. My copy of The Comfort Book by Matt Haig is dog-eared throughout. The collection of essays offers comfort in every way, plain and simple. Untamed by Glennon Doyle is a book about living fully and authentically. Her truth was different from my life, yet I understand that for many of us, we created a life that others wanted for us rather than the one we would have chosen for ourselves if given the opportunity. We are currently reading Brené Brown’s Rising Strong. We love Brene Brown, and of course, she has written her books just for us.
All the forementioned books are great reads for both education and for enjoyment. Books are friends, helpful friends that lead us to see the world with different perspectives. Special books can indeed change our lives.
Silver Sage Sisters 