We are often asked for additional information on voluntary simplicity. Although we have never found any book that completely reflects our personal form of simplicity, there are a number of books that have helped us clarify our own thinking on the subject. We recommend going to your local library and borrowing these books. However, if you insist upon actually having your own copy, we have made arrangements with Amazon.com that will allow you to buy them directly from our web page. The beauty of this arrangement is that you get the same great price and service from Amazon books as if you had spent the time to search them out there yourself, and we get a small commission that we guarantee you will go into our travel fund. Feel free to help us see the world! Thanks - Clay and Judy • Your Money or Your Life : Transforming Your Relationship With Money and Achieving Financial Independence -by Joe Dominguez Price: $10.36 There's a big difference between "making a living" and making a life. Do you spend more than you earn? Do you dislike your job but can't afford to leave it? Is money fragmenting your time, your relationships with family and friends? If so, Your Money or Your Life is for you. It puts it all in perspective and may give you that spark you need to change it all. This is one of our favorites. • Getting a Life : Real Lives Transformed by Your Money or Your Life by Jacqueline Blix, David Heitmiller, Jacquelyn Blix Price: $16.77 This is a companion to Your Money or Your Life and explains how the authors as well as two dozen other individuals and families have gradually transformed their lives over the past six years by using the books 9 step program. • Voluntary Simplicity : Toward a Way of Life That Is Outwardly Simple, Inwardly Rich - By Duane Elgin Price: $8.00 The grand-daddy of simplicity books. Voluntary Simplicity is not a book about living in poverty; it is a book about living with balance. It shows the pattern of changes that an increasing number of Americans are making in their everyday lives. Although sometimes dated, it is often given credit for naming and defining the movement. • The Simple Living Guide : A Sourcebook for Less Stressful, More Joyful Living - By Janet Luhrs Price: $16.00 Luhrs, the founder and publisher of Simple Living Journal, has assembled a big book that covers nearly all the bases: time management, families, money management, work, clutter, and gardening. • The Circle of Simplicity : Return to the Good Life by Cecile Andrews - Price: $14.00 The Circle of Simplicity speaks to readers seeking to find greater peace and happiness by eliminating some of the clutter and distraction in their lives. Andrews offers detailed instructions on how to form and run a simplicity circle, a support group for the terminally harried. Her book emphasizes the value of slowing down as a way to find time to reconnect with a community. Although we have never read this book we have had several people recommend it. • Keeping Life Simple - by Karen Levine Price: $7.96 The book's seven guiding principles help you assess what's really satisfying. It then discusses half-a-dozen areas in which we can live creatively and simply (food, housing, clothing, celebrations, etc.). For each area, after a brief discussion of what is meaningful and needful in that area, Levine presents letters from many different people detailing specific things they did or changes they made in trying to work out the values of voluntary simplicity in their lives. If you find a good book on voluntary simplicity, please let us know about it! The following are books that have been recommended by others - we have not read them ourselves. Thanks to everyone who has sent us the titles of books they have enjoyed and found useful. • A Reasonable Life : Toward a Simpler, Secure, More Humane Existence -by Ferenc Mate Price: $8.80 • Less Is More : The Art of Voluntary Poverty : An Anthology of Ancient and Modern Voices Raised in Praise of Simplicity - by Goldian Vandenbroeck (Editor), E. F. Schumacher (Designer) Price: $11.96 • Tis a Gift to Be Simple : Embracing the Freedom of Living With Less - by Barbara Degrote-Sorensen, David Allen Sorensen, Barbara Sorensen Price: $8.79 • The Plain Reader - by Scott Savage Price:$10.36 •The Simplicity Reader - by Elaine St. James (out of print, used copies available)