55 Reflections of a Searching Skeptic: Exploring the Faith Journey of a Poetic Bipolar Believer offers a colorful literary mosaic composed of an eclectic assortment of spiritual, mental health and self-development reflections. Barbara Bamberger Scott, of Pacific Book Review, states, “Rich Melcher’s gifts are fully developed here in this varied, thought-provoking collection, and his readers will hope for more to come.”

This 48,500-word work reflects the spiritual, inspirational, self-developmental, motivational and mental health genres. The book offers readers 55 unique and diverse reflections about topics such as thoughtful Biblical commentary and meaningful memoir about my diagnosis of bipolar disorder. It also encounters numerous other important topics such as dealing with anger, humility, segregation, the dilemma of not-being-enough and living a life with “no hurries—no worries.”

55 Reflections invites the reader to explore a variety of poignant and challenging readings, featuring over 60 poetic expressions—poetry and prose which are peppered with insightful, genuine observations and useful perspectives from my authentic faith journey.

The target audience is likely to be readers, ages 25-75, who enjoy evocative spiritual commentary, pointed memoir, stimulating poetry and helpful self-improvement topics—expressed in a refreshing, personable style.

I have authored eight self-published books of which this is the most recent. They vary from topics such as a 365-daily-reader, a memoir on bipolar disorder, a youth-focused novel on discovering clues to a mysterious ethics code, and many more. 55 reflections has received a highly-rated, positive review from Pacific Book Review (attached), plus numerous individual affirmative critiques from those who have read the book.

Since 1982, I have been writing prose and poetry, amassing over 16,000 journal and scrapbooking pages, hundreds of original poems and dozens of purposeful spiritual articles.