January reading

Last year I bought a Kindle 3.  One of the interesting features it has is text to speech.  I'm guessing this is not an official feature of the device because it's located in the menu under "Experimental".  The voice is male, and he reads mostly well.  The voice has trouble with some punctuation, such as speeding through a bulletted list with no pauses.  For standard text, it reads comprehensibly enough that I can listen to it while I'm driving to work and back.  I've read several books this way, including Urban Farming by Thomas Fox, Personal Development for Smart People by Steve Pavlina, and Time Warrior by Steve Chandler.  All were very enlightening.  I'm currently reading Power vs Force by David R. Hawkins.

These books are all good for consciously changing my perspective.  Steve Pavlina is one of my favorite authors.  He writes about conscious growth.  His website www.stevepavlina.com has tons of articles that are each mind expanding on their own.  He also has podcasts on this site, and they are very eye opening as well.  Steve wrote a review on Power vs Force focusing on the levels of consciousness.  Just reading about these levels helps to put some logical understanding to reality.  The article inspired me to start reading this book.  It's a delightful read considering how much I love philosophy and mind-bending ways of thinking.

Professional Development for Smart People sounds like a snide title, but essentially conscious growth makes you smart, so really the title could be Personal Development for the Consciously Aware.  Steve Pavlina first ran a computer gaming business, and then switched gears to go into the personal growth business.  I connect with his writing very well because I am a computer programmer with a philosophical streak.

Urban Farming was an excellent book.  The first part fires up the reader with the grand cause of urban farming to save the world.  The second part gets more into the how-to and includes an mini encyclopedia of plant information.  If it's not enough information, then it's certainly enough to get a quality search started.

Time Warrior was just an excellent book.  Steve Chandler has a very common sense way of looking at all of our excuses for not doing what we really want and tearing them down.  This leaves a clear path to a goal more obvious and lifts the extra weight off your shoulders so you can get there.