"The Fellowship of the Ring" by J.R.R Tolkien

"The Fellowship of the Ring" by J.R.R Tolkien is the first book of the Lord of The Rings. It is 406 page long and tells the story of Frodo - Bilbo Baggins' nephew and the new owner of "the ring". 

Frodo sells his hobbit's house that he inherited from Bilbo and set out to a long and dangerous journey - to Mordor in order to fight the evil forces and "do the right thing when it comes to the ring".

A Company is formed consisting of four hobbits, a dwarf, an elf, a wizard and two men and the author describes their long, adventurous and magical journey. 

The book is a bit dark, maybe because it's set in forests and mountains, lakes and rivers. The time of the year is winter (December-January). It is 15th century. There are orcs, black riders, the evil eye and other monsters. Gollum the goblin is following them (and they know it) but they haven't had any encounter with it yet. 

Gandalf the wizard perishes into the abyss after the magnificent magic wand stunt. Bombur gets influenced by the evil in the end and wants Frodo to give the ring to him. Frodo gets scared and sets off alone. Sam follows him. 

It's my first time to read The Lord of The Rings and although from one side being extremely happy to have read it and getting to know the amazing writer and artist J.R.R. Tolkien, I did struggle a considerable amount while reading it. 

The book is full of very unfamiliar places and even creatures, it has poems, songs and a great number of never heard of names (of places, people, things). It was a pretty slow read for me, although a part of me did enjoy the never ending forests with elf dwellings and it was great meeting beings that I've never met before.

It's very hard to describe this book or to explain it. It is about a fantastic place with fantastic creatures - that exits only in our tales. It seems to be a tale of good and evil and about how evil works and what are the good things that could fight it off. 

Some phrases and sentences seem to be very wise and guiding, like the ancient wisdom or a religious scripture. There always seems to be more to The Lord of The Rings that first meets the eye. I hope I'll understand better after reading the following two books.

"The Hobbit" by J.R.R.Tolkien

"The Hobbit" by J.R.R. Tolkien is the book before the "Lord of the Rings" that was published first in 1937. The most heartwarming part is that the author wrote this for his children as a story to enjoy beside the fireplace.

I remember having this book in my childhood but never getting to read it. It seemed somehow difficult and unreadable for me at that time. Now, at the age of 37, I have come up to reading this book and I'm happy I did.

The story is about a Hobbit - a small sized humanoid creature and a thief, who is being visited by a wizard and 13 dwarves in order to go and recover the treasure once stolen by an evil dragon. At the end of the book, the wizard tells Hobbit that all his challenges were there in order to help Hobbit grow (they were somehow magically simulated). 

The Hobbit, although a thief, is our hero and being a home-body and not very brave he sets out on a dangerous journey throughout the woods. It's about how a bunch of tiny dwarfs and a tiny Hobbit go through scariest challenges and battles - they cannot go back. After overcoming the challenges on the way, Hobbit starts becoming better and better, gains confidence and becomes the leader of the group. His journey reminds me of the journey of a human in life. The challenges are simulated and yet a human being grows while overcoming those challenges.

It took time for me to start liking and "getting" this book. At first it was weird reading about dwarfs and a Hobbit travelling through the woods with the whole mythical landscape being dark, wet and cold but later it start ringing the bell that there is a great message hidden behind it all. I also started liking Tolkien's writing style and description of mountains and lakes. I found it to be really relaxing to be taken to some unknown natural land without plastic floating in the rivers and without mobile phones.

I really enjoyed this book and I would recommend this to absolutely everyone as a never dyeing classic but when you read, try to read between the lines and see what do you get out of it. 

"The Book of Five Rings" by Miyamoto Musashi

(A) "The Book of Five Rings" by Miyamoto Musashi is a little book of 160 pages which is a classic.

It is written by two legendary samurai of 17th century  Japan - Miyamoto Musashi and Yagyu Munenori. 

The book is translated from simple Japanese at that time but is full of sword fighting, duel and martial arts terminology that can make it difficult to relate to and understand. 

Miyamoto Musashi was an exceptional person because he never lost a battle. He wrote that there is a certain state of mind that lets him win and this state of mind is a "normal state of mind" (not hateful or agitated but just calm and regular). 

He said that one should train and be the same in war and in daily life. He mentions rigidity being a bad habit vs the flexibility. 

From the first sight, this book is strictly for martial artists and sword fighters. If you have never been in a fight, it's probably going to be hard to even visualize you being in one and understand what these two legends are talking about.

However later you notice, you can apply the same strategies in your own life while dealing with people (especially if you see them as your enemies). At that time in Japan the warrior class was the leading class and to win battles one had to train one's mind. 

Warriors like Yagyu Munenori, studied Zen Bhuddism, Taoism and Confucianism and his writings seem to be more "educated" but not very easy to understand. Miyamoto Musashi was known as a brute and his writings are more straightforward and raw. 

I personally struggled reading the book, because it seemed too archaic and I couldn't visualize myself easily in a sword fight or even a battle. I could understand some of the mind wisdom shared in the book, but, of course that will not be easy to achieve. 

This book does have some good ideas such as about practice and training, flexibility, stance and how to think to succeed and many of these ideas are influenced by the Buddhist teachings.

I think the modern spiritual alternative for the book are Eckart Tolle books that talk a lot about mind and I think I will need to reread this book to understand it better.

I would definitely recommend this book because it's a very famous book and a part of fun is to discover what makes it so great. I think those who are into martial arts could take some of the advice literally, leaders and business people about leadership, historians about history, anthropologists about culture and theologists about the influence of various philosophies and religions at the time. 

"The Free Will Zone" by Shiloh Russo Stone

"The Free Will Zone" by Shiloh Russo Stone caught my interest on Kindle. It was recommended to me by the Kindle after downloading some samples on UFO related books.

The preview of this book included a piece of channeled information (from or by Hilarion) and seem to be really interesting, although the preview was really short and was misleading in a way that the pages included in preview were either by another author or was written way better than the book itself.

So, the book was like a porridge of different concepts, aspects and esoteric ideas that were thrown in without any connection, pattern or relation to each other. It was hard to make sense of the point because the ideas seemed to contradict each other. 

The information was presented like it was something new and shocking but it was an old information freely available on the Internet. The book was written in a preaching and lecturing way which was pretty annoying. 

From its description, preview and the book cover I got the impression that it's going to be the new "Urantia" or "Seth Speaks" (I expected a channeling). I think it was mediocre, judgmental and offensive and although, no doubt the author had good intentions, it's just unreadable. 

I would not recommend this book because it feels incomplete, unrefined, unfinished, unedited, biased and didn't make any sense (for me) and it's just one of those purchases that makes you mad because it's just not what you expected.

"Modern Tarot" by Michelle Tea

(A) "Modern Tarot" by Michelle Tea is a thick 384 page book about tarot meanings. 

The author is not currently a professional tarot reader but she is an award winning and successful writer who has about 10 books under her belt. Her writing style is exceptional in a way that it's written in a fun, humorous and modern way including some swear and slang words. The author is also LGBT, everything-weird and feminist friendly. The author learned to read tarot at the age of 15 while being a goth. 

The book covers the meanings of 78 cards. Michelle Tea goes through each and every card and tells us what it means, based on experienced that she had in personal life. The author mainly writes about upright meanings while covering positive and negative aspects of the cards. 

After covering the meanings of each card (which is about 4 pages) the author includes some witch craft or magic ideas. She suggests which crystals and herbs to use in order to be more like the Knight of Coins or the Strength card, for example. You can find some good rituals, bath and recipe ideas here. I enjoyed some of them but skipped the others because I don't have the ingredients and am not into rituals in general (although it would be fun to try some).

Anyway, what I enjoyed the most about the book was the author's writing style and her personality. She seems to be a rebellious, artistic and extravagant type who has been through a lot of crazy experiences and life and she does write very honestly. I didn't feel the author taking sides or judging anyone, which was relieving and mature. Whenever I have the opportunity, I would like to read the other books by this writer.

PS If you're a beginner in tarot, this book could help you see how each card works in real life but you will not find any spreads or tarot history here. The card meanings seem to be very accurate and I would "agree" with them. I especially liked the court card meanings which were really great covering three aspects of them (situation, person and if you are that tarot card). 

If you're an experienced tarot reader, you might still benefit reading this book because you could relate to the card meanings. Also it might help to cover up and even out the "weak" cards.

I enjoyed reading this book. 

"Journey of Souls" by Michael Newton

 "Journey of Souls" by Michael Newton is the book to read if you want to know about life after death. 

Michael Newton is a very experienced counselor and hypnotherapist who wrote this book based on his hypnotherapy sessions with his clients. 

The clients would be taken to their past lives via hypnosis and would describe the things that they would be seeing. Among the earthly life experiences they would vividly describe the afterlife experiences. 

The book is definitely one of a kind, a bit similar to Dr. Brian Weiss books but Michael Newton's  books focus more on the "life in between lives" and not as much on past lives.

It describes a kind of hierarchy of souls that exists in the spirit world and the sense of "home" and belonging that most of the people that went through hypnotherapy experienced. 

The book is about 270 pages long and is full of real cases written in a format of dialogues where people are describing what they are seeing in the afterlife and the doctor keeps asking very deep questions in order to get more knowledge about death and how the cycle of souls and reincarnation work. 

I think this book is outstanding and very rare. Throughout thousands of years humans tried to find answers to questions about what happens when we die or why are we here and I think that this book is as close to the answer as one can get. 

I think every living human should read this book. It is eye-opening, awakening, uplifting, wise, mind-expanding, calming, reassuring, hopeful and just absolutely worth it!

"Brief Answers to Big Questions" - Stephen Hawking

"Brief Answers to The Big Questions" by the famous theoretical physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking is a great book about "Big Questions". 

The author is asked questions like: "Is there a God?", "How did it all begin?", "Can we predict the future?", "What is inside the black hole?", "Will we survive on Earth?" etc.

I bought this book at my daughter's school and read it after a while. It was written in a very easy language and was interesting to read, however I found I struggled to follow some chapters where black holes and the ten dimensions of the universe are being explained. Never having read a book on science before, I found I didn't know what were all these famous theorems and theories,  elements and particles. I have no clue about physics. This book made be google "the basics", so that I could follow. It did sparkle an interest in physics and science in general for me and I wish I could read more. 

It was a great experience reading this book because I've always admired Stephen Hawking for, despite of his illness, not giving up and keep following his dream and achieving a lot. He is a big inspiration for the rest of us (especially the ones who just sit and complain about minor discomforts instead of following our dreams). It was an honor to be able to read such a great scientist's thoughts. The overall "feeling" that I am left with after reading this work is "INSPIRED and HAPPY". 

"Chariots of the Gods" by Erich von Daniken

(A) A tiny 150 page book packed with enormous amount of information, mainly archeological and historical (until the page 110) and then - scientific and futuristic. 

The book was written in an easy to read yet scientific style and I felt like it was directed to the skeptical and old-fashioned scientific community who were "refusing" to "believe" in aliens.

The author supplies us with lots of historical examples from the ancient civilizations' artifacts and findings and he invites us to look differently at the famous cave drawings, pyramids and other structures. 

He dwells deep in mythology at times and that did get a bit confusing for me. The book reminded me of the series "Ancient Aliens" by the "History Channel". 

It's definitely a great book, but it didn't shock me nor surprised me (I wanted it to do just that). I felt like I've read all of that before (or maybe watched on "Ancient Aliens"). 

This was my first book by Erich von Daniken and I really didn't know what to expect. However I was hoping it to be a light and "hocus-pocus" filled New Age read. So, if you're hoping this to be a New Age literature - you might be disappointed, if you're into physics - you might like it (and better understand it).