Some people tell me that they don’t read novels. I have never been able to understand that. Not only are novels great fun, they often teach you things that would be very hard to assimilate in any other way. Case in point, my friend Charles Sides’ second novel, A Portal to Myself. A friend who read it on my recommendation, wrote me, in part:
“I got right through it in 2 days. There was a lot of overlap with my own experiences and I enjoyed having it in a story form. … Another thing his book did for me was to look more closely at how these other strands have affected my feelings, reactions, and viewpoints to the events of my daily life…. The ideas themselves were not new concepts to me, but reading it in the story form that Charles laid out, brought it into a new focus for me, and it also challenged me to go to a different level with it. Interestingly enough, having it in a pretend story has made it more real for me. Go figure!”
From the blurb on Amazon:
“What if we somehow started to experience alternative realities? Suppose all of a sudden we started to experience our lives not only as they are, but as they could have been if we had made different choices? And what if we started to see what our life still could be?
“This is what happens to a real estate agent in a small town. Suddenly, for no reason he can imagine, Dave begins to experience a different life. In fact, two different lives. Three.
“Dreams? Mental illness? Out-of-body experiences? Whatever they are, they begin whipping Dave One into and out of the lives of alternative Dave Two and Dave Three. Like so: “Dave runs downstairs to his wife’s art studio…which isn’t there. Shock! Barbara’s studio is a sports room…with golf clubs and exercise equipment but no Barbara. Calling 911 flashes through his mind but what would he say? He sits down on a…treadmill…and tries to think. What should he do? He remembers instructions from a meditation tape he heard at the spa. “When you are experiencing stress or anxiety, take slow deep breaths and focus on them. He takes a very deep breath while his eyes dart around the room. He takes breath two and realizes he missed breath one. No focus. Breath two isn’t much better. He stands up and looks around. The walls are covered with photos of him playing golf. And there’s a lot of exercise equipment with mirrors everywhere. He has a coherent thought: I haven’t exercised for a long time.”
You get the idea. I really recommend this one. I can’t put a gun to your head and make you buy it (though I’m open to the possibility) but, at least consider it. Go to Amazon, choose books, type in “Charles Sides” or “Portal to Myself.” Give yourself a treat.
I purchased the book on your recommendation and it greatly exceeded my expectations. I found it really enjoyable and it really helped clarify many of the ideas. I think writing it as a novel was a stroke of genius; it allowed the ideas to be presented in a much more interesting manner than they could have been if it was presented as a collection of ideas of how things might be. I really resonated with it as everything talked about matches very closely to what my guides/higher self have been telling me. I highly recommend it.