I have a hard time coming up with a set way to describe the books on this page. Maybe the next time you come here it will be different.
The books are in chronological order of when they were written, except the last one (From Me To You), and How Can We Love? has two parts, the latter written after Sometime in the 21st Century. If you read them all in order, you may be able to see a kind of meta-story formed by them.
The synopsis for that meta-story would be "an innocent moving through dark spiritual realities" and "an ongoing breakdown". Or, "discovering the truth and trying to hold to it over time". I think it might make most sense to "people who care" -- maybe some artists, activists, religious people, some economic- or systems-oriented altruists, or other people who are passionate about making the world better than it would become by default -- when they are young and not yet committed to their life work. Or, before they realize they are "people who care", or as they begin to realize it.
The books are artistic / literary. I think they are best read by people who have time for that kind of reading.
I'm probably the wrong person to ask if they are good or not (because my opinion is biased both for and against them). But I think they are interesting and educational, and may be moving to some readers.
You can buy print copies online. There are some copies available for sale in San Diego, as noted below.
The digital copies are free, but maybe that makes them harder to appreciate. We value what we pay for, and we trust (in the sense of connecting with) what we value. If you want, you can donate money to a charity, before you allow yourself to read them.
How Can We Love? (free: PDF epub mobi)
2014, 2016
A non-fiction book urging holiness, altruism, and forgiveness. I'm not sure what to say other than that.
(This would be the truth in the meta-story that is held to over time.)
No reviews so far.
(If you read How Can We Love?, perhaps a good thing to read afterward is this blog post on "things to do".)
Sometime in the 21st Century (free: PDF epub mobi)
(San Diegans: there is a copy in the San Diego Public Library catalog.)
2015
A novel-length poem? A poetic novel? It's about a person who encounters another person, needs to see her again, and writes a book to try to reach her and come to terms with his future with or without her. Also, it's about wearing out, resource depletion, the end of the world, and life after the end of the world. Inhabits a psychological space and process. It continues themes from How Can We Love?
From my favorite Goodreads review:
As such, it's probably one of the best shows I've ever read of how complex, contradicting, chew-the-cud-ish, self-delusional we as people are. A real dive to a human soul, to the parts we would probably never get to see but in parts and portions in ordinary circumstances. Yet, because there is nothing else but this, no real climax to the story, no real timeline to the events that are described, it also struck me as a very underwhelming experience overall.
Letters to People Who Care (free: PDF epub mobi)
(San Diegans: Available at Verbatim (a bookstore) for $15)
2016
A dream-like slice-of-life describing a future world. A conventional novel (more or less), told as a series of diary entries. People living very ordinary lives in a post-fossil fuels city where people kind of don't care. A thought experiment: what would life be like if no one cared in a deep or ultimate way (even less so than currently)?
Goodreads review says:
Good writing but didn't seem to go anywhere.
The Tree With Unimaginable Roots (free: PDF epub mobi)
(San Diegans: Available at Verbatim for $10)
2017
A book in the same genre as Sometime in the 21st Century. There is some plot: the narrator encounters someone who dies and becomes a ghost. Ghosts haunt people so that they care about the horrors of the world. To tell more would spoil the plot (simple as it is). The book is set in San Diego County, CA, at least, nominally. Important themes: how is it that we can find the meaning in life? What meaning is there other than to see the meaning we already know, to connect with the subtext of reality (the "unimaginable roots" of what we see)?
No reviews so far.
Variations (free: on the server)
2017
This is a book which contains more poetic/psychological vignettes (like Sometime in the 21st Century and The Tree With Unimaginable Roots). However, this computerized book prints out the vignettes in a random sequence. If you sign up for an account on the server, it remembers which ones you have read so that they do not repeat, so that you can read the whole thing through. I haven't read this one in a while, but I remember it had a feeling of emptiness to it. Why would you want to read a book that would give you a feeling of emptiness, you might ask? Perhaps to awaken spiritual hunger...
No reviews so far.
(San Diegans: Available at Verbatim for $15)2018
This is also in the psychological/philosophical novel/poem vignette style (along with Sometime in the 21st Century, The Tree With Unimaginable Roots, and Variations). It is my favorite of these books, and I am not sure what to say about it -- maybe that is why it's my favorite, although I'm not sure. One theme is silence, which if I recall correctly is: finding a way to speak but being silent at the same time.
No reviews so far.
Patience (free: PDF epub mobi)
2018
This book could be seen as a transition from the above kinds of books to writing a blog (which I started doing in 2019). The essays inside have a somewhat poetic and otherworldly feel. My favorite is the one toward the end about how love is often just nationalism, and there are many nationalisms.
No reviews so far.
2016
This book consisted of greeting card designs, laid out in a book, with some extra text and illustrations. I'm not happy with how it turned out, and so it's not available anymore.
But if you want to see the card designs, see here.
The Circle is a book I am not publishing anymore, but you might see an entry for it on Goodreads.