Here are 100 books that The Four Sacred Gifts fans have personally recommended if you like The Four Sacred Gifts. Book DNA is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Conscious Uncoupling: 5 Steps to Living Happily Even After

Margaret Paul Author Of The Inner Bonding Workbook: Six Steps to Healing Yourself and Connecting with Your Divine Guidance

From my list on healing and connecting with your Divine guidance.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve known since I was 5 years old that my passion in life was helping people be all they came to this planet to be. I have been working with individuals, couples, businesses, and groups, and teaching courses for 54 years. Having had many years of my own psychotherapy, and 17 years into practicing traditional psychotherapy, I was not happy with the results, so I prayed for a teacher or a process that would really work. 38 years ago, I met Dr. Erika Chopich and we co-created the powerful Inner Bonding process, brought to us by our higher guidance, that rapidly heals on a very deep level, far beyond traditional psychotherapy. 

Margaret's book list on healing and connecting with your Divine guidance

Margaret Paul Why Margaret loves this book

My friend Katherine is a master at helping couples uncouple in kind and caring ways, filled with integrity. I recommend this book to all my clients who are ending their relationships, and many of my clients tell me how very helpful this book was to them. Breakups and divorces don’t have to be contentious, and even if just one of you reads this book, it will be incredibly helpful to you.

By Katherine Woodward Thomas ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Conscious Uncoupling as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In 2014 a media storm erupted when Gwyneth Paltrow announced her separation from Chris Martin, describing it as a harmonious and mutual 'conscious uncoupling', and the term entered the world's vocabulary overnight. 

Coined and created by relationship expert Katherine Woodward Thomas, Conscious Uncoupling is a paradigm-shifting guide for anyone suffering from heartache, whether you are in the midst of a breakup right now, still struggling with unresolved pain from a past breakup, or anticipating a possible breakup and wish to ensure it goes well.

Conscious Uncoupling’s transformational five step process provides an alternative path to the end of a relationship--one…


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Book cover of December on 5C4

December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

Book cover of Whole Brain Living: The Anatomy of Choice and the Four Characters That Drive Our Life

Beth Kurland, Ph.D. Author Of You Don't Have to Change to Change Everything: Six Ways to Shift Your Vantage Point, Stop Striving for Happy, and Find True Well-Being

From my list on helping you change the way you see the world for well-being and transformation.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a youth, I longed to understand life and its meaning and purpose, and I sought books that opened me up to a world that transcended the more rational, tangible aspects of my life. I also became fascinated with psychology in high school and knew that would be my life’s path. In college and beyond, I was drawn to meditation and mind-body practices that became transformative in my life. This journey continues to this day, calling me to bridge the scientific and psychological with the more contemplative and spiritual traditions to find and help others find healing and wholeness. 

Beth's book list on helping you change the way you see the world for well-being and transformation

Beth Kurland, Ph.D. Why Beth loves this book

I found this book so compelling that I not only read it but found myself putting it into practice right away in my own life and with my patients. Jill Bolte Taylor’s story is quite remarkable in the way she describes witnessing her own massive stroke, its effect on her brain and body, and her eight-year journey of healing herself back to health and wellness.  

What was most fascinating to me was her observation and description of the four quadrants of our brains and how each one has its own personality (the rational, logical self; the reactive, self-protective, emotional self; the playful, free-spirited and present-focused self; and the spiritual, expansive whole self that experiences oneness with all things).

The book has abundant opportunities to experience the workings and "personalities" that reside in your brain and psyche and learn how to help each part work together in harmony to live your…

By Jill Bolte Taylor ,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Whole Brain Living as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Discover how to tap into the present moment, shift out of anxiety and gain a sense of deep inner peace by understanding the brain's two hemispheres.

At age 37, Harvard neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor suffered a massive left-hemisphere stroke that took away her ability to speak, walk, read, write or remember any of her life - and gave her an unprecedented, profound experience of dwelling in the right hemisphere and the sense of oneness and peace to be found there. Her recovery led to her writing the New York Times bestseller My Stroke of Insight, being named one of Time…


Book cover of The Magic of Surrender: Finding the Courage to Let Go

Margaret Paul Author Of The Inner Bonding Workbook: Six Steps to Healing Yourself and Connecting with Your Divine Guidance

From my list on healing and connecting with your Divine guidance.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve known since I was 5 years old that my passion in life was helping people be all they came to this planet to be. I have been working with individuals, couples, businesses, and groups, and teaching courses for 54 years. Having had many years of my own psychotherapy, and 17 years into practicing traditional psychotherapy, I was not happy with the results, so I prayed for a teacher or a process that would really work. 38 years ago, I met Dr. Erika Chopich and we co-created the powerful Inner Bonding process, brought to us by our higher guidance, that rapidly heals on a very deep level, far beyond traditional psychotherapy. 

Margaret's book list on healing and connecting with your Divine guidance

Margaret Paul Why Margaret loves this book

This book is deeply inspiring to me. I not only love Kute’s writing, but I love how he takes us on his personal journey to being able to let go of control. His stories are captivating and kept me glued to the book. I know Kute because he is a fellow member of the Transformational Leadership Council, and he lives what he teaches. Many of my clients have been inspired by this book.

By Kute Blackson ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Magic of Surrender as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

From one of the boldest voices in the world of personal growth and motivation, a guide to moving past inner struggle to discover the power of relinquishing control.

Too often we limit our lives by putting conditions on them. We think things should go a certain way, and when they don't, we hold on to what isn't working, reinforcing what is causing us pain and affirming our lack of trust in the universe. There is another way: We can harness the power of relinquishing control and discover more purpose and meaning in our lives.

After the passing of Kute Blackson's…


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Book cover of Retrieving the Future

Retrieving the Future by Randy C. Dockens,

Stealing technology from parallel Earths was supposed to make Declan rich. Instead, it might destroy everything.

Declan is a self-proclaimed interdimensional interloper, travelling to parallel Earths to retrieve futuristic cutting-edge technology for his employer. It's profitable work, and he doesn't ask questions. But when he befriends an amazing humanoid robot,…

Book cover of Deeper Dating: How to Drop the Games of Seduction and Discover the Power of Intimacy

Margaret Paul Author Of The Inner Bonding Workbook: Six Steps to Healing Yourself and Connecting with Your Divine Guidance

From my list on healing and connecting with your Divine guidance.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve known since I was 5 years old that my passion in life was helping people be all they came to this planet to be. I have been working with individuals, couples, businesses, and groups, and teaching courses for 54 years. Having had many years of my own psychotherapy, and 17 years into practicing traditional psychotherapy, I was not happy with the results, so I prayed for a teacher or a process that would really work. 38 years ago, I met Dr. Erika Chopich and we co-created the powerful Inner Bonding process, brought to us by our higher guidance, that rapidly heals on a very deep level, far beyond traditional psychotherapy. 

Margaret's book list on healing and connecting with your Divine guidance

Margaret Paul Why Margaret loves this book

If you are tired of the game-playing that goes on with dating, and you are ready to find the love of your life, then don’t miss this book by my friend Ken Page. Ken’s book is a masterpiece for discovering how to attract the kind of person you want as a life partner, regardless of your sexual orientation. I recommend this book to all my clients who are dating. 

By Ken Page ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Deeper Dating as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

With exercises, practical tools, and inspiring stories, Deeper Dating will guide you on a journey to find the love—and personal fulfillment—you long for

Lose weight. Be confident. Keep your partner guessing. At the end of the day, this soulless approach to dating doesn't lead to love but to insecurity and desperation. In Deeper Dating, Ken Page presents a new path to love. Out of his decades of work as a psychotherapist and his own personal struggle to  find love, Page teaches that the greatest magnet for real love lies in our "Core Gifts"—the places of our deepest sensitivity, longing, and…


Book cover of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants

Aymar Jean Escoffery Author Of Reparative Media

From my list on finding your personal AI: Ancestral Intelligence.

Why am I passionate about this?

I used to think of television as a third parent. As a child of immigrants, I learned a lot about being an American from the media. Soon, I realized there were limits to what I could learn because media and tech privilege profit over community. For 20 years, I have studied what happens when people decide to make media outside of corporations. I have interviewed hundreds of filmmakers, written hundreds of blogs and articles, curated festivals, juried awards, and ultimately founded my own platform, all resulting in four books. My greatest teachers have been artists, healers, and family—chosen and by blood—who have created spaces for honesty, vulnerability, and creative conflict.

Aymar's book list on finding your personal AI: Ancestral Intelligence

Aymar Jean Escoffery Why Aymar loves this book

This book helped me release shame after a colleague of mine told me my work wasn’t “science.”

Here’s the truth: to create a healing platform, I needed to tap into ways of thinking that academia sees as “woo woo” and “savage.” I looked to the stars. I meditated. I did rituals and read myths.

Dr. Kimmerer, trained as a traditional botanist, realized that the Indigenous myths and stories she was told as a child contained scientific knowledge passed down for generations by her tribe.

She realized there were scientific truths her community knew for millennia that traditional scientists only discovered within the last 100 years. This is the power of Ancestral Intelligence, disregarded by the same science that ultimately created AI.

What stories, fables, and myths have taught you valuable lessons about the world?

By Robin Wall Kimmerer ,

Why should I read it?

59 authors picked Braiding Sweetgrass as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Called the work of "a mesmerizing storyteller with deep compassion and memorable prose" (Publishers Weekly) and the book that, "anyone interested in natural history, botany, protecting nature, or Native American culture will love," by Library Journal, Braiding Sweetgrass is poised to be a classic of nature writing. As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer asks questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces indigenous teachings that consider plants and animals to be our oldest teachers. Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowledge together to take "us on a journey that is…


Book cover of Becoming Kin: An Indigenous Call to Unforgetting the Past and Reimagining Our Future

Serene Khader Author Of Faux Feminism

From my list on bust white feminist myths.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am a feminist political philosopher (yes, this is a job!). My superpower—and my training—is being able to see “through” public life to the values and arguments that animate it. I have been writing about the ideas behind feminist movements, especially movements in the global South, for almost 15 years. I am also a mom of color who thinks a lot about women’s labor.

Serene's book list on bust white feminist myths

Serene Khader Why Serene loves this book

I love how this dazzling book reveals a deep truth that is known to so many women of color but obscured by the white feminist myth of individualism. There is no way we can be not related to each other, so the real question that matters for politics is not whether we will be related to each other; it is how we want to be.

Part excavation of settler colonialism—including its effects on Indigenous women—and part meditation on how to build solidarity without denying our complicity in oppressive structures, the book is visionary and even manages to be hopeful. It also draws attention to an issue that no 21st-century feminism can afford to ignore: our relationships with the land. I learned so much about what it means to show up for each other and about why we have to.

By Patty Krawec ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Becoming Kin as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

We find our way forward by going back.

The invented history of the Western world is crumbling fast, Anishinaabe writer Patty Krawec says, but we can still honor the bonds between us. Settlers dominated and divided, but Indigenous peoples won't just send them all "home."

Weaving her own story with the story of her ancestors and with the broader themes of creation, replacement, and disappearance, Krawec helps readers see settler colonialism through the eyes of an Indigenous writer. Settler colonialism tried to force us into one particular way of living, but the old ways of kinship can help us imagine…


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Book cover of What Walks This Way: Discovering the Wildlife Around Us Through Their Tracks and Signs

What Walks This Way by Sharman Apt Russell,

Nature writer Sharman Apt Russell tells stories of her experiences tracking wildlife—mostly mammals, from mountain lions to pocket mice—near her home in New Mexico, with lessons that hold true across North America. She guides readers through the basics of identifying tracks and signs, revealing a landscape filled with the marks…

Book cover of On Savage Shores: How Indigenous Americans Discovered Europe

Laura Galloway Author Of Dalvi: Six Years in the Arctic Tundra

From my list on life changing books on life in the Arctic (and other cold climates!).

Why am I passionate about this?

Why I chose to write about cold climates: I spent nearly seven years living in the North of Norway in the Sámi reindeer herding village called Guovdageaidnu, or Kautokeino in Norwegian. I cherish my time in that part of the world. 

Laura's book list on life changing books on life in the Arctic (and other cold climates!)

Laura Galloway Why Laura loves this book

This is a little off-piste in that this isn’t exactly about cold climates; the main topic of Dodds Pennock’s book is about how Indigenous Americans discovered Europe. I first heard Dodds Pennock talk about her book at a lecture in London just a few months back and had to buy the book, which is a riveting account of the reverse migration of Indigenous Americans to Europe.  

Why include this book on the Arctic, you ask? Dodds Pennock also writes about a few Indigenous Inuit that make it to England, and I haven’t stopped thinking about the story she tells about their fraught lives in the UK and (until now) unknown or forgotten history in England. For example, she tells a gripping story of two Inuits who were abducted and brought to London in the 1570s and are buried in the city in unmarked graves at St. Olave’s Church. 

By Caroline Dodds Pennock ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked On Savage Shores as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

We have long been taught to presume that modern global history began when the 'Old World' encountered the 'New', when Christopher Columbus 'discovered' America in 1492. But, as Caroline Dodds Pennock conclusively shows in this groundbreaking book, for tens of thousands of Aztecs, Maya, Totonacs, Inuit and others - enslaved people, diplomats, explorers, servants, traders - the reverse was true: they discovered Europe. For them, Europe comprised savage shores, a land of riches and marvels, yet perplexing for its brutal disparities of wealth and quality of life, and its baffling beliefs. The story of these Indigenous Americans abroad is a…


Book cover of The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America

Trilby Kent Author Of The Vanishing Past

From my list on challenge historical perspectives.

Why am I passionate about this?

As an undergraduate History student, I was told by one of my professors that I thought too much like an anthropologist; as a postgraduate Anthropology student, I was told by another professor that I wrote too much like a historian! At that point, I finally gave up and turned to journalism and fiction writing…though my love for history figures largely in much of what I continue to write and read today.

Trilby's book list on challenge historical perspectives

Trilby Kent Why Trilby loves this book

Thomas King is one of the great voices of our generation, and without a doubt, the thing I loved most about this book was his voice: witty, wry, self-deprecating, caustic, clever, outraged, and honest.

Highly recommended for anyone interested in the facts, characters, stories, and narratives of a difficult history, as well as reckoning with past and present injustice.

By Thomas King ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Inconvenient Indian as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In The Inconvenient Indian, Thomas King offers a deeply knowing, darkly funny, unabashedly opinionated, and utterly unconventional account of Indian-White relations in North America since initial contact. Ranging freely across the centuries and the Canada-U.S. border, King debunks fabricated stories of Indian savagery and White heroism, takes an oblique look at Indians (and cowboys) in film and popular culture, wrestles with the history of Native American resistance and his own experiences as a Native rights activist, and articulates a profound, revolutionary understanding of the cumulative effects of ever-shifting laws and treaties on Native peoples and lands.

Suffused with wit, anger,…


Book cover of The Heart of Everything That Is

Alex Gross Author Of Prison of the Mind: Paintings by Alex Gross 2014 - 2024

From my list on historical nonfiction about underdogs.

Why am I passionate about this?

I love history in all forms. I enjoy first-person memoirs, and I also love historical biographies if they are well-written. Native American history is one of my areas of fascination, and the founding of our country is another. World War two is another area that I have delved into in the last few years, and it's so complex. Ultimately, all of the books I recommended are connected to important historical events, but their real strength is the people whom they are about. Looking through my list, I see that all of the books are about underdogs or figures who ultimately did not prevail in terms of their specific situations. 

Alex's book list on historical nonfiction about underdogs

Alex Gross Why Alex loves this book

Much like the biography of Quanah Parker, this book tells the story of Red Cloud, the last great Chief of the Sioux Indians and the only one to defeat the Americans in war. He's an amazing historical figure and not one that I had learned anything about in school.

I'm fascinated by this period of American history and the complex relations between the Native American tribes and the white settlers. Red Cloud was not only a great warrior and leader of men but also insightful and pragmatic. I found him quite heroic and more interesting than Sitting Bull, who seems more well-known. It's a great book, another one for me that is a joy to revisit regularly. 

By Bob Drury , Tom Clavin ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Heart of Everything That Is as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 8, 9, 10, and 11.

What is this book about?

From bestselling authors Bob Drury and Tom Clavin comes the epic, untold story one of the most powerful Sioux warriors of all time, Red Cloud—now adapted for a younger audience!

“I have but a small spot of land left. The Great Spirit told me to keep it.” —Red Cloud

This young readers edition of the New York Times bestseller of the same name tells the long forgotten story of the powerful Oglala Lakota chief, Red Cloud. At the height of Red Cloud’s power the Sioux claimed control of vast parts of the west. But as the United States rapidly expanded,…


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Book cover of The Bridge: Connecting The Powers of Linear and Circular Thinking

The Bridge by Kim Hudson,

The Bridge provides a compassionate and well researched window into the worlds of linear and circular thinking. A core pattern to the inner workings of these two thinking styles is revealed, and most importantly, insight into how to cross the distance between them. Some fascinating features emerged such as, circular…

Book cover of Animism: Respecting the Living World

Gavin Van Horn Author Of Planet

From my list on a living kinship with the more-than-human world.

Why am I passionate about this?

I remember, as a very young child, clandestinely sneaking out of the house on humid Houston nights to gather toads. How my parents never caught me in the act, I do not know. I only know holding these amphibians in my hands felt special, magical even. This compulsion toward other creatures speaks to the unfolding of my lifelong learnings, a path that led me to a PhD in Religion and Nature and then to work for the Center for Humans and Nature. I’ve never stopped reflecting on how humans might better care for our earthling kin, and I don’t suspect I’ll ever cease marveling at the earth’s wild generativity. 

Gavin's book list on a living kinship with the more-than-human world

Gavin Van Horn Why Gavin loves this book

I first met Graham when I was a PhD student attending a conference on religion & animals. He is a person who seems drawn to and across boundaries of scholarship, and though this book is scholarly, it’s also a totally accessible overview of the ways in which animism is not some primitive ideology but, rather, core to human experience and cultures all over the world. Harvey provides a careful treatment of historical and contemporary animist perspectives, nonhuman personhood, and the formation of animistic sensibilities. He details how animism fosters a constant dialogue between humans and non-human persons—a kind of social, spiritual, and ecological conversation that is continuously negotiated. Animism is not a thing of the past; it’s a way of life that is vital to a viable future. 

By Graham Harvey ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Animism as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

How have human cultures engaged with and thought about animals, plants, rocks, clouds, and other elements in their natural surroundings? Do animals and other natural objects have a spirit or soul? What is their relationship to humans? In this new study, Graham Harvey explores current and past animistic beliefs and practices of Native Americans, Maori, Aboriginal Australians, and eco-pagans. He considers the varieties of animism found in these cultures as well as their shared desire to live respectfully within larger natural communities. Drawing on his extensive casework, Harvey also considers the linguistic, performative, ecological, and activist implications of these different…


Book cover of Conscious Uncoupling: 5 Steps to Living Happily Even After
Book cover of Whole Brain Living: The Anatomy of Choice and the Four Characters That Drive Our Life
Book cover of The Magic of Surrender: Finding the Courage to Let Go

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