Maybe I will help myself a little this year: The 2016 Self-Help Junkie Challenge

This is a new challenge for me in 2016. I am doing it strictly for fun, or as some of my friends would say, "for shits and giggles." Self-help is not a genre I read much; however, I am in the middle of a book that would qualify for this challenge, and I have at least one other on my TBR  pile that would qualify as well (and I can cross it to the nonfiction and the TBR Mountain challenges. See how that works?). Thus I am adding it to my list of reading challenges for the year. If nothing else, reading a bit in this area will help me with my readers' advisory skills.

The 2016 Self-Help Junkie Challenge.

As usual, click on the link above to see all the details. Some highlights from the rules:

• This Challenge runs from January 1, 2016 to December 31, 2016. You cannot start the book until January 1st, and the last page needs to be read by Dec. 31st. (No worries,  I did start that one book after New Year's Day). 
• As long as the book has a category of Self-Help or Self-Improvement.  The books can also deal with Nutrition, Diet, Wellness, Health, Exercise, Mind, Body, Change, Spirituality, Learning a New Skill - just to name a few... (It says spirituality, so I may go with that angle a bit). 

I am keeping the commitment level low on this one as it is a new challenge in a genre I do not always read. If I read more, I will upgrade. I am committing to the following level:

Poser 1-2 Books.  You must be close to perfect! No need for deep searching.

As for the list of books, I will add books to it as I get to them. I will link the reviews once I post them to the blog.

List of books read for this challenge:

1.  Jane Lyle, The Illustrated Guide to Tarot. 
2. Christopher Hansard, The Tibetan Art of Positive Thinking. 
3. Masahiko Murakami, Nichiren.
4. Staci Mendoza and David Bourne, Reading and Understanding the Mysteries of Tarot. 
5. Josephine Ellershaw, Easy Tarot Handbook.
6. Jessa Crispin, The Creative Tarot. 
7. Anthony Louis, Llewellyn's Complete Book of Tarot: a Comprehensive Resource.
8. Thich Nhat Hahn, Silence. 
9. Barbara Moore, Tarot for Beginners.   
10. Miguel Ruiz, Jr., The Mastery of Self.  

Update note (5/24/16): With the first three books on the list, I complete the initial challenge commitment. With three books, I can upgrade to the next level. Since I have some books that qualify with reviews scheduled to post next month, this should be something I can do. So, moving up to the next level:

Seeker 3-5 Books.  You are looking for something, but not quite sure what yet.

Update note (7/8/16): With books 4-6 above, I complete my first upgrade to the challenge. With 6 books total, I can upgrade to the next level of the challenge. If I recall, I still have some books on the TBR list that can qualify for this challenge. Let's see how far up we can go. Here is the next level:

Hacker 6-9 Books.  You think that you should be changing, and trying to figure out how to hack your life.

Update note (11/29/16): With books 7-10 I complete the second upgrade to the challenge. Given we are almost in December, I am stopping here satisfied I completed this challenge for the year. If offered again, I may or not try it again. The fact that I started studying Tarot and oracle cards this year certainly helped, but I also read a few other self-help/spiritual kind of things. Overall, it was a good opportunity to read some different things.