Skip to main content

Natural Awakenings Naples and Fort Myers

Summer Reading: Top Picks from Local Booksellers

Jul 31, 2018 09:58PM ● By Linda Sechrist

Reading by the season was a decades-old phenomenon by 1894 when a Boston Globe reporter asked a Boston, Massachusetts librarian to tabulate the reading habits of the city’s inhabitants. Today, whether it occurs under an umbrella or on a lounge chair, the tradition of summer reading is still enjoyed in Bean Town, as well as on Southwest Florida beaches.

Natural Awakenings queried local bookstores owners that carry metaphysical and spiritual books to learn what titles are being tucked into the beach totes of readers in search of help in navigating the perplexing and uncertain times in which we are living. The Path of Being, in Fort Myers, The Mystical Moon, with locations in Bonita Springs and Fort Myers, Goddess I AM, in Naples, as well as Unity of Naples and Unity of Fort Myers were happy to divulge that readers are purchasing an interesting diversity of fiction and nonfiction titles.

A Path of Being

You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life, by Jen Sincero, is an entertaining how-to-guide full of hilariously inspiring stories, sage advice and easy exercises that help readers identify and change self-sabotaging beliefs and behaviors, as well as how to use The Force to kick some serious ass.

Novel Women, by the Between Friends Book Club, tells the story of six women hit hard by middle age. Marriages fall apart, children leave for college and jobs disappear. Facing confusion and rediscovery, heartache and loss, the women manage to grow closer by the enduring power of love and friendship.

The Art of Losing Myself, by Katie Ganshert, is the story of the Florida panhandle’s favorite meteorologist. From the outside, Carmen Hart appears to have it all together. Inside, she struggles with doubts until her 17-year-old runaway sister changes everything. The book explores how two half-sisters make each other whole and put a marriage back together.

The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment, by Eckhart Tolle, takes readers on an inspiring spiritual journey to find their true and deepest self and reach the ultimate in personal growth and spirituality: the discovery of truth and light.

What I Thought I Knew: A Memoir, by Alice Eve Cohen, delivers a candid tale of hope and renewal that turns all “knowns” upside-down. After a difficult divorce, Cohen was happy for the first time in years, until her mysterious symptoms, months of tests, X-rays, inconclusive diagnoses and an eventual CAT scan revealed she was six months pregnant at age 44.

Mystical Moon

The Empath's Survival Guide, by Judith Orloff, M.D., is a practical guide that explains how empathic people can stay fully open while building resilience, exploring gifts of deep perception, raising empathic children and feeling welcomed by a world that desperately needs what they have to offer.

Psychic Development 101, by Laurie Barraco, focuses on helping readers grow spiritually, psychically, physically, mentally and emotionally. It is a compilation of Barraco’s wisdom, psychic tips, meditations and insights on using sage, crystals, the tarot, pendulums, meditation, channeling and spirit guides.

Alchemical Healing, by Nicki Scully, combines techniques of shamanism and energetic healing with the principles of alchemy, creating a practical form of physical healing, therapeutic counseling and spiritual growth. The author helps readers to co-create the future with the wisdom of the spirit world.

The Seth Material, by Jane Roberts, is a classic work in the area of spiritual growth, spiritual wisdom and practical advice to solve everyday problems, expand consciousness and directly connect with greater knowledge and being.

Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul, is a Seth book. An essential guide and map to inner reality and conscious living, it articulates the furthest reaches of human potential and presents the concept that we are independent of our physical image and have access to intuitional knowledge and other dimensions of reality.

Animal Speak: The Spiritual & Magical Powers of Creatures Great and Small, by Ted Andrews, is a reference guide for forging a spiritual connection with animals, birds, insects and reptiles. Andrews provides techniques for recognizing and interpreting the signs and omens of nature, as well as how to meet and attune to animals as totems and spirit guides.

Earth School 101: Who We Are, Where We Are and Why We Are Here, by Alan Arcieri, offers spiritual insights addressing the mystery of our existence and how to live meaningful lives, as well as inspiring, healing and self-empowering wisdom and compelling answers to timeless questions.

Goddess I AM

Goddess Wisdom: Connect to the Power of the Sacred Feminine Through Ancient Teachings and Practices, by Tanishka, explains how ancient civilizations worshipped female deities and women’s wisdom was once deeply revered. The author helps readers reconnect with sacred Goddess traditions.

The Reluctant Messenger: Tales from Beyond Belief, by Candice M. Sanderson, is the story of the author’s life-changing experience in 2013, when her training as a psychologist failed to explain events that eventually led Sanderson on an adventure into the unknown.

Unity of Naples

The Five Levels of Attachment, by Don Miguel Ruiz, Jr., builds on the principles found in his father's bestselling book The Four Agreements, and explores the ways in which we attach ourselves inappropriately to beliefs that cause suffering in our lives and the world.

The Unity bookstore has a free lending library, $5 used books and free books donated by members. A weekly book study group meets on Wednesday afternoons during season. Book titles vary according to member preferences.

Unity of Ft. Myers

The Isaiah Effect: Decoding the Lost Science of Prayer and Prophecy, by Gregg Braden, addresses how the Great Isaiah Scroll, one of the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in the mid-1900s, offers insight into a nonreligious, nondenominational form of prayer that transcends time and distance to bring healing to our bodies and peace to the our modern world. (This is a selection for a book study group led by Reverend Clive deLaporte beginning August 22.)

The I of the Storm: Embracing Conflict Creating Peace, by Gary Simmons, uses spiritual principles, biblical quotes and martial arts philosophy, as well as concepts from modern science to go beyond managing conflict to embracing and allowing it to teach readers what they otherwise might not learn. (A book study group led by Christina Bowman begins August 25.)

These book titles and their descriptions indicate that Southwest Floridians are seeking new tools and practices that can take them to the calmer and more peaceful harbor of the higher self, where beneath the activity of any surface waves, there exists a stillness that the storm cannot touch.

Local Resources

Goddess I AM, 600 Goodlette Rd. N., Naples. 239-228-6949. GoddessIAM.com.

Path of Being, 15248 S. Tamiami Tr., Ste. 300, Fort Myers. 239-437-5141. ThePathOfBeing.com.

The Mystical Moon, 8890 Salrose Ln., Ste. 107, Fort Myers. 239-939-3339; 8951 SE Bonita Beach Rd., Bonita Springs 239-301-0655. TheMysticalMoon.com.

Unity of Fort Myers, 11120 Ranchette Rd., Fort Myers, 239-278-1511. UnityOfFortMyers.org.

Unity of Naples, 2000 Unity Way, Naples, 239-775-3009. NaplesUnity.org.