The Heart Aroused : Poetry and the... I had this book on a shelf for the last five years. For unknown reasons, I picked it up the other day and found I couldn't put it down. It's one of the few books I've read recently that I wish I had written. David Whyte is a poet turned consultant. His contemplation on soul at work, or soulful work is wonderful (though in truth, it's light on the work part, but deep in soulfulness)..

Questioning the Millennium : A... Probably the time to have read this was late 1999 while you were deep in millennial or millennium angst (the proper spelling is two n's by the way). I read it just recently and it makes my list because it's a charming and thoroughly engaging survey of a subject I otherwise had no interest in: the mechanics behind our current calendar. You can read it just to enjoy Gould's use of the English language, to stock up on useless tidbits about why anyone cares about the thousand year metric in the first place, or to get the real skinny on Dionysius Exiguus, the guy who came up with the whole B.C., A.D. thing for Pope St. John I.