“It wasn’t until I started reading and found books they wouldn’t let us read in school that I discovered you could be insane and happy and have a good life without being like everybody else.” – John Waters
While it is terribly true that we have only one life to live, it is a myth to say that we have only one life to experience. I have lived one thousand lives on one thousand pages. Here are books to change your life, as they have changed mine. Books to match your step, when nobody else sees you moving.
The Hermetica: The Lost Wisdom of the Pharaohs, By Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy
The Hermetica, in this form, begins with a history lesson. The Hermetica in it's true form is not a single book, but a body of many works attributed to the ancient known as Thoth. A venerated sage who transformed himself into a god, was regarded as among the most important and cherished of all in ancient Egypt.
We covered The Hermetica in the Archive of Marked Pages: The Hermetica
"So, listen, men of clay. If you do not pay keen attention, my words will fly past you, and wing their way back to the source from which they come." - The Hermetica
Signs: The Secret Language of the Universe, By Laura Lynne Jackson
The following story is true in its entirety. I had heard of this book through the grapevine. Through what I now believe to have been intentional signs.
Though I was already seeking it out, it caught my eye on the shelf. I flipped through the first few pages, I read the back cover. I decided, most certainly, that it had not piqued my interest. It was not meant for me. As I returned it to the shelf, I opened to a random place somewhere in the middle of its 200+ pages.
On the page, the only thing on the page, was a poem. A poem that I know so well, have memorized so effectively, that I now write it here purely from memory:
"Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glint on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awake in the morning's hush
I am the swift, uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft starlight at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die."
This is the poem that was written on my grandfather's funeral card. It is the most profound poem that exists to me. It is one of only two that I have memorized.
My body was overcome with chills, and tears burned in my vision. Of course, I bought the book. There could have been no clearer sign if my full name had been burned into the page.
As I have read this book, I have encountered more signs. Signs which, in my truest belief, transcend any possibility of coincidence or subconscious.
Signs: The Secret Language of the Universe
A renowned psychic medium teaches us how to recognize and interpret the life-changing messages from loved ones and spirit guides on the Other Side.
Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI, By Yuval Noah Harari
Not all transformation is spiritual. While you may now only be leaning into the idea that there are incredible unseen forces that guide our world, consider that not all of them stem from other planes. Many of these unseen forces are powered by the unrelenting, impossible power of the human mind, of the human spirit and of the human history that unites us all.
“As a species, humans prefer power to truth. We spend far more time and effort on trying to control the world than on trying to understand it.” - Nexus
Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI, By Yuval Noah Harari
Nexus looks through the long lens of human history to consider how the flow of information has shaped us, and our world.
Children of Time, By Adrian Tchaikovsky
Some books expand your soul. Others rewire your mind. Children of Time is the critical bridge between both.
It is, on its surface, a science fiction novel. But what it really offers is something far more ancient: a meditation on evolution, belief, civilization, and time itself. It tells the story of a species lifted up — not humans, but spiders — and the collapse of the human world they were meant to inherit.
Tchaikovsky crafts a tale of gods and worship, language and war.
What does it mean to be human if another species surpasses us in wisdom? What does it mean to be God when your creations grow beyond you?
Children of Time changed the way I think about intelligence, belief, and memory — not just across species, but across generations. It is a mirror held up to civilization, showing us both our shadow and our seed.
“Life is not perfect, individuals will always be flawed, but empathy – the sheer inability to see those around them as anything other than people too – conquers all, in the end.”
Children of Time, By Adrian Tchaikovsky
Who will inherit this new earth? The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors they discover the greatest treasure of the past age—a world terraformed and prepared for human life.
We are not just shaped by the lives we live — we are shaped by the lives we imagine, the voices we trust in silence, the questions we carry when the world sleeps. These books did not simply offer me answers. They rewired my questions. They did not give me directions — they shifted the terrain beneath my feet.
They were not recommendations.
They were initiations.
Whether whispered by gods, encoded by networks, or etched into the fabric of memory and time — each of these works is a signal. If it reaches you, it was meant to.
So take what resonates. Follow the thread.
The next life is always one page away.