This is the ongoing analysis of the books I read over 2017. This title might seem like an odd grouping to most people, but there is actually a strong thread throughout.
First, if you missed the previous posts here they are:
Now, more on that strong thread…
A lot of what I read this year was to aid in the writing of my own book, still in the works, Powered By Nature. In the following lists, every italicized book title was quoted, referenced or otherwise utilized for this purpose. As you can see, across the four sections it’s most of them.
And really many of them could have been put in the other categories. You’ll see I actually did put Sheldrake into two different categories. Most of the nature books were heavy on science, and about the health impact of nature, which is the primary goal of my book too.
Nature Books
- The Nature Principle by Richard Louv
- The Lost Language of Plants by Stephen Harrod Buhner
- What a Plant Knows by Daniel Chamovitz
- Vitamin N by Richard Louv
- The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben
- The Secrets Teachings of Plants by Stephen Harrod Buhner
- The Bay Area Forager by Kevin Feinstein and Mia Andler
- The Rebirth of Nature by Rupert Sheldrake
- Survival Handbook by Peter Darman
Buhner is one of my favorite authors. That’s also why I read his book about writing too. More on that later.
I won’t go into the amazing details of all these books. You’ll have to wait for Powered By Nature for that (or read all of these).
But I will mention The Bay Area Forager. Actually before I read this book I did a foraging class with Kevin Feinstein. That class, then using this book for more and as a resource guide, helped me up my foraging game in 2017, which should grow even stronger next year. I’m doing this as a way of building a closer connection to real food and where it comes from, especially in the wild.
Shamanism Books
- Psychonavigation by John Perkins
- Illumination by Alberto Villoldo
Seeing as I’ve traveled to both the Amazon jungle and Guatemala with him, I’ve read over half of John Perkins’ books. Very entertaining author with subjects that are important to me.
Science/History Books
- The Fourth Phase of Water by Gerald Pollock
- Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
- Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari
- Rigor Mortis by Richard Harris
- Slow Death By Rubber Duck by Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie
- Evolution 2.0 by Perry Marshall
- Trust Us, We’re Experts by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber
- Magicians of the Gods by Graham Hancock
- Why Science is Wrong…About Almost Everything by Alex Tsakiris
- Science and Spirituality by Rupert Sheldrake
One of the hardest chapters for me to write in Powered By Nature is the one about The Fall of Nature/The Rise of Scientism. It was Rupert Sheldrake’s book Science Set Free that opened my eyes to this idea, which I read the previous year. (The synopsis is materialism as a philosophy has a strangle hold on science and the worldview of many things and is not actually scientific in it’s approach.)
While Sapiens and Homo Deus are conventional science, everything else listed here is not. They either detail the problems of science, alternative (but superior and actually fitting the evidence better) theories, or both.
Evolution 2.0 looks at the whole idea of Darwinism vs. Creationism as a false divide, and what the evidence is actually showing.
Trust, Us We’re Experts is about how industries can muddy the scientific waters, and have done so over and over. Everyone knows that Big Tobacco did this. Few people realize how pervasive it has been in the past, and still is today.
Rigor Mortis covers the difficulties of scientific experiments, even when it is not purposefully mislead. From the conventional side of things, it still shows the major flaws in what we call science.
The Fourth Phase of Water shows just how wrong the conventional understanding of water is. Water! If we don’t have the most common and foundational molecule right, how much can we trust more advanced things?
Nor is it just science, but other fields like archaeology too, as covered in Magicians of the Gods, which shows a preponderance of evidence for rewriting human history from what we’re all taught as the mainstream view.
I am thoroughly enjoying this topic. The more I dig in the more I see how flawed so much that we accept without question is. Since we live in the “scientific age,” I feel this is must-have knowledge to be able to successfully navigate the world. I plan to write more about this topic in the future.
Health Books
- Primal Fat Burner by Nora Gedgaudas
- The Vegetarian Myth by Lierre Keith
- Eating on the Wild Side by Jo Robinson
- King by Elliot Hulse with Chris Barnard
- Head Strong by Dave Asprey
- Move Your DNA by Katy Bowman
- The Vaccine Friendly Plan by Paul Thomas, MD and Jennifer Margulis, PhD.
- In the Dark by Jason Bawden-Smith
- Fat for Fuel by Dr. Joseph Mercola
Once again, plenty of science in pretty much all these books. And the crossover between health and nature books is fairly arbitrary.
You’ll notice that a lot of them lean towards the high fat diet or ketosis. That’s something I’ve been exploring and is trendy now, so new books on the topic have been coming out and I’ve been reading them.
But these aren’t all diet books. Some are about things likes light and how it affects you, and movement.
There is one more post about the categories in books, then a final post covering a different way of look at the complete list, as well as thoughts on my reading for 2018.