I'm downvoting the Monbiot. There's a bait-and-switch Machine thinker if ever there was one. The man will have us all eating fake meat in our pods and lovin' it.
Thanks so much for this feedback. Neither of us has read this one and it was included based on reader recommendations. Do you think it is "off" enough to remove it from the list, or might it still provide helpful reflections?
Well, it all depends, I suppose. In many ways his argument in there is good: it's basically an argument for rewilding landscapes, bringing back wild species and the like. So far, so un-Machiney. But that argument led directly into another, which he laid out in his next book, 'Regenesis': that in order to progress this rewilding project, we should abolish farming and begin eating vat-grown bacterial food.
Basically, he has gone full WEF, and the need to rewild/reduce carbon has been used to justify an attack on local self-sufficiency and a dive into Machine world. He has been moving in that direction for years. To my mind, it's an example of the dark side of rewilding (which as a notion, I am still in favour of in plenty of circumstances.)
Thanks again for pointing out that this book is a poor fit here (and I thus removed it from the recommendations). I dug a bit deeper into the details and was appalled that he advocated for getting rid of sheep from Wales and Scotland and farming altogether. This quote by a farmer on Monbiot's suggestions made a solid point: "I'm not against something new...but it should be progression from what you've got, not wiping the slate clean. With blanket rewilding you lose your unwritten self...It's like book-burning."
I created a post specifically designed for addressing techno-optimist, anti-human conservationist, "bright green" environmentalist ideas such as you describe "Monbiot" as promoting here:
In that post I offer the following antidote for the detrimental fallacy of the idea of the smart city and the walled off wilderness preserve:
I would like to propose what may sound like a radical proposition to some nature lovers and environmentalist activists out there that may have been conditioned to subconsciously embrace a quasi-misanthropic view of humanity and our place on this world.
I do not advocate lessening our impact on the natural world. I think we should increase our impact on the more than human world ten fold.
As Lyla June says in this video clip ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HumlU31zKAE&t=2744s ) we can use these human hands to proliferate amazing abundance, becoming an asset to the Earth and making her feel grateful for our presence.
I think we should use these amazing human hands and powerful brains that God gave us to have a huge impact, like the people of the Amazon did when they created the Terra Preta soils that allowed them to co-create the giant food forests of the Amazon jungle that have persisted for 4500 years.
Instead of internalizing the false idea that portrays humans like a plague or a cancer on the Earth, I advocate we instead use our free will (and the sentience that so many humans covetously claim is unique to our species) to instead choose to define ourselves as co-creators of beauty, abundance and diversity.
Our ancient ancestors have shown us by example ( https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol26/iss2/art6/ ) that it is possible to become a positive force for impacting nature in a way that honors and nurtures life, rather than defining our selves as takers, users and consumers.
Destruction and degeneration are not inevitable. Humans are not inherently parasitic and extractive as the anti-human globalist propaganda implies.
Humans have the capability of either being takers/consumers (extracting from the Earth but giving nothing back) or givers (living within a web of reciprocal gift exchanges).
Both choices can be observed in individuals in our lives and cultures throughout history.
Here are some examples of when cultures decided to use their genius, technology, horticultural/botanical knowledge and ecological literacy to define themselves as givers living within a web of reciprocal gift exchanges (having a huge positive impact on the ecosystems around them):
Some other examples of technology serving as a regenerative tool that fostered increased biodiversity, increased human habitation and permanent food production systems that do not require fertilizer:
Thanks for highlighting this growing trend of people falling into the detrimental thinking that keeping ourselves out of wilderness and nature and living is smart cities is a good idea for the planet.
I have not read George for a while, so this one for me remains 'suspect'. Not so much bothered by fake meat, more concerned with fake participation in 'policy'. Glad Naydler is on the list: I would add his ; 'The Struggle for a Human Future' (2020). I like his chapter 'The Quest for the Pearl'. Fwiw I put up a couple of reviews of his last two books at the start of my recent attempt at a substack. Mark Vernon got wide publicity in 2019 for a couple of his reviews of 'In the Shadow of the Machine' .
Thanks for your work - seems to focus on what we can save perhaps for another go at civilisation. I tend to take a Toynbee view on the current one. Smile.
I don't like Monbiot at all but I've read Feral and thought it was excellent and I think it is appropriate for your purposes here. There may have been some Machine-y solutions posited but I don't remember any - perhaps I will need to reread it. If anything on first reading I remember thinking it was a bit woo!
I’m wondering about the lack of women writers on your list. Which leads me to wonder about diverse voices in this conversation. I write from the point of view of art, body wisdom, soul, and justice. I’m on Academia.edu. and study the impacts of industrialization and patriarchy on organic technologies like dance, voice, breath, and story. Is that part of this conversation? I think you have many more unconformists to consider. i could add a link my bibliography if anyone wants to see it.
Thanks for this comment Cynthia. This is not a complete list and is still open to suggestions. The focus is not just on great books, but ones that highlight the importance of digital minimalism, the negative impact of technology on what it means to be a person, or something that metaphorically expresses the dangers of technology as one of its primary themes. Thus, if you have a specific suggestion of female authors that fit those criteria, we'd be happy to take a look.
Just off the top of my head, Rebecca Solnit's book about Eadweard Muybridge, River of Shadows; Pip Pip: a Sideways Look at Time, by Jay Griffiths; and Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock by Jenny Odell.
I would also contend that a devotion to the hand underpins Ursula K Le Guin's entire body of work. For a taster, here's (a slightly glitchy version of) her short story The Day Before the Revolution, which is a sort of prequel to her masterpiece The Dispossessed.
Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein should be on the list. It is all about the hubris of people who pervert nature and come up with a monster. Deadly unintended consequences created by fallen Man pretending to be God. In the end he creates someone as flawed as himself, a monster in the image and likeness of his human creator.
Didn't know Children of Men was a book. You can almost see that playing out now with reduced fertility from tech and wireless radiation. Will pick up the book!
Yes, do yourself a favor and read the book. She’s an excellent author no matter what genre she is writing in and to be honest I hated the movie based on how magnificent I found the book. I would be interested to hear what you think after you read it, in terms of the films adaptation.
I highly recommend watching films etc with an eye out for the source material, I've found lots of interesting books to read that way as well as some insights into how you take words from a page and reshape them for a screen.
While the Outer Planets trilogy by C.S Lewis is probably not going to top peoples favorite books list, I can definitely attest to That Hideous Strength (1945) being absolutely prophetic in terms of the kind of mindset. I found myself circling more text as I was reading through than any other book last year.
I completely agree, I was absolutely shocked by the foresight and could not believe how simply Lewis laid out the motivations ans thouught process. Though I felt that way with Abolition of Man too. My comment was more for the plot itself.
May I suggest Man Alive by Chesterton. Not only is it a fun read but it presents some interesting solutions to the bureaucratic problems we are experiencing.
I just finished The Coddling of the American Mind and found it so compelling. Stolen Focus is on my list, so I'll likely head to that after a break for fiction :)
This is parenting specific, but I really appreciate The Montessori Baby & The Montessori Toddler. It's on theme in that the Montessori approach (how I grew up) is very grounded in presence and connection.
I also love books by Eckhart Tolle and wisdom leaders like Pema Chodron. These are considered to be more spiritual so may turn some off, but again I find the theme of presence and being here now to be the main throughline, so others in your orbit might appreciate them :) Thanks for sharing! Saving this list to return to :)
Thanks for your additions Miriam. The Montessori books will be a good fit for the family/parenting list (see here https://schooloftheunconformed.substack.com/p/letters-from-the-unconformed-vol). The movie of The Coddling of the American Mind that was just released on Substack is well done and brings the themes discussed in the book to life.
To this wonderful thread, I would like to add David Fleming's (literally) encyclopaedic 'Lean Logic - A Dictionary for the Future and How To Survive It'. It's a hearty, incredibly well-researched book, thought-provoking, convivial and practical in equal measure, which I have been reading all year in place of newspapers, at the table. There is also an online version of it here. https://leanlogic.online/ So much of what Ruth and Peco write about is echoed, or expanded upon, in here.
Then I would absolutely recommend 'Always Coming Home' by Ursula LeGuin, for its many layered exploration of possibilities for a truly living culture in her award-winning studies of a society, The Kesh. The people in the book 'might be going to have lived a long, long time from now in Northern California.' Everything is explored: technology, AI, war, song, humour, myth, craft, religion, love, death. She somehow packed her whole experience and wisdom, and that of her anthropologist parents and their Indigenous informants and friends, (such as Ishi) into this book, a masterpiece of speculative fiction.
Both this (in the Library of America version) and the hardback of Lean Logic, are richly illustrated with ink drawings and wood engravings, as good as the writing itself. I recommend both for your next winter's enjoyment, although maybe not as slim volumes for a train journey.
An excellent contemporary read that is accessible to all and right on the money as far as unmachining goes, is Joshua Gibbs’ “Love What Lasts.” If you haven’t had the opportunity to read it, you must do so immediately!
I loved reading how much Michael D. O’Brien has impacted you! I have a similar “impact” story. I’ve read all of books at least twice (I’ve read Strangers and Sojourners 4 times!). I have been saying I’m going to write to him for years just to tell him, “thank you, thank you for following the voice of the Lord and sacrificing so much to bring your art and writing to me and to the world.” I consider him a spiritual father of sorts (though I’ve never met him!) and it’s not an exaggeration to say that his writing and iconography have kept me tethered to God in very rough seasons of life. When I read Exogenesis, immediately told my husband that this was like a next generation Michael D. O’Brien novel. Haha!
Thanks for this lovely comment :) I have not read Strangers and Sojourners yet, but have read Father Elijah three times, and will look forward to rereading many others. It is very difficult to get a hold of him in person (he does not keep an internet presence), but if you send a letter to Our Lady Seat of Wisdom College in Barry's Bay Ontario, they will likely be able to pass it to him.
I will add it to my mountain of to-be-read books. I distinctly remember reading Island of the World because it was so heavy on the wrist! I would often read it while nursing my newborn and it was incredibly engrossing (and heavy) :)
Thanks, Beth. Michael is at a level of his own in his art and writing (and as a gentle, wise human being), and I’m grateful to be mentioned in the same sentence.
I have not yet read all his novels, but Island of the World, which you mentioned, was gripping and incredibly heartbreaking, yet redemptive. Strangers and Sojourners has been on my list for a while. I will have to move it up the line!
1) "The Natural Alien: Humankind and Environment" by Neil Evernden
("In using numbers to talk about the world [the environmentalist] forgets that his initial revolt was partly precipitated by people using numbers to talk about the world.")
2) "In the Absence of the Sacred: The Failure of Technology and the Survival of the Indian Nations" by Jerry Mander
3) "Red Medicine: Traditional Indigenous Rites of Birthing and Healing" by Patrisia Gonzales
Walter Ong, "Orality and Literacy", is essential reading. He describes how people's thinking has changed over time and cultures with the introduction of the technologies of writing, and then printing. It's a fascinating read, and deserves a place alongside MacLuhan et al.
E F Schumacher - Small is Beautiful, John McKnight - The Careless Society, many books from Steven Caney (about building, play,...), more from Ivan Illich, Georgi Markov, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions - Thomas Kuhn, The Invisible Rainbow - Firstenberg, so many more, just off the top of my head. Home Work - Lloyd Kahn, Permaculture - Bill Mollison, Emmanuel Levinas,...
I would like to offer my own humble contribution to this list which I compiled in two separate posts (there is a little over lap with some of your suggestions but also many books not included in your excellent list).
Many of the books I offer in the posts I will link below are on the practical side of using our hands in service of life. While this may seem as dry or inconvenient to some (learning about the mycelium that connect tree roots or the methods and ways in which one can create a forest garden with blood, sweat, tears, patience and love) I feel those pathways of learning (and more importantly physical engagement with the natural world they necessitate) helps to dissolve the illusory veil of separation that “civilization” has trained us into perceiving between us and the wild more than human world.
Firstly, the initial post for my Substack Newsletter that contains a list of a number of books along with other forms of nourishment for the heart and mind (sound, shapes and colors) that I feel can help “keep one human” (or perhaps more accurately invite one to recognize the seed of humanity within, and then nourish it to unfold what it means to be human into increasing layers of beauty, complexity and grace).
I'm downvoting the Monbiot. There's a bait-and-switch Machine thinker if ever there was one. The man will have us all eating fake meat in our pods and lovin' it.
https://paulkingsnorth.substack.com/p/the-fourth-revolution
Otherwise this should keep up all busy for a few years. Good work.
Thanks so much for this feedback. Neither of us has read this one and it was included based on reader recommendations. Do you think it is "off" enough to remove it from the list, or might it still provide helpful reflections?
Well, it all depends, I suppose. In many ways his argument in there is good: it's basically an argument for rewilding landscapes, bringing back wild species and the like. So far, so un-Machiney. But that argument led directly into another, which he laid out in his next book, 'Regenesis': that in order to progress this rewilding project, we should abolish farming and begin eating vat-grown bacterial food.
Basically, he has gone full WEF, and the need to rewild/reduce carbon has been used to justify an attack on local self-sufficiency and a dive into Machine world. He has been moving in that direction for years. To my mind, it's an example of the dark side of rewilding (which as a notion, I am still in favour of in plenty of circumstances.)
Thanks again for pointing out that this book is a poor fit here (and I thus removed it from the recommendations). I dug a bit deeper into the details and was appalled that he advocated for getting rid of sheep from Wales and Scotland and farming altogether. This quote by a farmer on Monbiot's suggestions made a solid point: "I'm not against something new...but it should be progression from what you've got, not wiping the slate clean. With blanket rewilding you lose your unwritten self...It's like book-burning."
I created a post specifically designed for addressing techno-optimist, anti-human conservationist, "bright green" environmentalist ideas such as you describe "Monbiot" as promoting here:
https://gavinmounsey.substack.com/p/are-there-limits-to-growth?
In that post I offer the following antidote for the detrimental fallacy of the idea of the smart city and the walled off wilderness preserve:
I would like to propose what may sound like a radical proposition to some nature lovers and environmentalist activists out there that may have been conditioned to subconsciously embrace a quasi-misanthropic view of humanity and our place on this world.
I do not advocate lessening our impact on the natural world. I think we should increase our impact on the more than human world ten fold.
As Lyla June says in this video clip ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HumlU31zKAE&t=2744s ) we can use these human hands to proliferate amazing abundance, becoming an asset to the Earth and making her feel grateful for our presence.
I think we should use these amazing human hands and powerful brains that God gave us to have a huge impact, like the people of the Amazon did when they created the Terra Preta soils that allowed them to co-create the giant food forests of the Amazon jungle that have persisted for 4500 years.
( for more info: https://web.archive.org/web/20210615170106/https://returntonow.net/2018/08/01/the-amazon-is-a-man-made-food-forest-researchers-discover/ )
Instead of internalizing the false idea that portrays humans like a plague or a cancer on the Earth, I advocate we instead use our free will (and the sentience that so many humans covetously claim is unique to our species) to instead choose to define ourselves as co-creators of beauty, abundance and diversity.
Our ancient ancestors have shown us by example ( https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol26/iss2/art6/ ) that it is possible to become a positive force for impacting nature in a way that honors and nurtures life, rather than defining our selves as takers, users and consumers.
Destruction and degeneration are not inevitable. Humans are not inherently parasitic and extractive as the anti-human globalist propaganda implies.
Humans have the capability of either being takers/consumers (extracting from the Earth but giving nothing back) or givers (living within a web of reciprocal gift exchanges).
Both choices can be observed in individuals in our lives and cultures throughout history.
Here are some examples of when cultures decided to use their genius, technology, horticultural/botanical knowledge and ecological literacy to define themselves as givers living within a web of reciprocal gift exchanges (having a huge positive impact on the ecosystems around them):
“Architects of Abundance: Indigenous Food Systems and the Excavation of Hidden History” https://www.proquest.com/openview/17597a179528716e1a9e8515ca76ec77/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750&diss=y
Here is a video presentation that touches on some of the content in her dissertation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxxRV44-wZ0
Some other examples of technology serving as a regenerative tool that fostered increased biodiversity, increased human habitation and permanent food production systems that do not require fertilizer:
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/ancient-indigenous-forest-gardens-still-yield-bounty-150-years-later-study
http://www.daviesand.com/Papers/Tree_Crops/Indian_Agroforestry/index.html
https://returntonow.net/2018/08/01/the-amazon-is-a-man-made-food-forest-researchers-discover/?fbclid=IwAR0-XsOZCldwRzlMG_mkBxxqqYAeZ90TAVEsO4nB-noboHGqX1TZS_nn0xo
https://www.sdvforest.com/agroforestry/the-fascinating-story-of-human-made-forests?fbclid=IwAR3OVHhCywwzOiCSBMWyk6_Bdy_q-GRRN2N7-525iqdnYmc_BqtKeyu6Wz4
https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol26/iss2/art6/
https://canadianfeedthechildren.ca/what/food-security-projects/indigenous-food-forests/
Thanks for highlighting this growing trend of people falling into the detrimental thinking that keeping ourselves out of wilderness and nature and living is smart cities is a good idea for the planet.
I have not read George for a while, so this one for me remains 'suspect'. Not so much bothered by fake meat, more concerned with fake participation in 'policy'. Glad Naydler is on the list: I would add his ; 'The Struggle for a Human Future' (2020). I like his chapter 'The Quest for the Pearl'. Fwiw I put up a couple of reviews of his last two books at the start of my recent attempt at a substack. Mark Vernon got wide publicity in 2019 for a couple of his reviews of 'In the Shadow of the Machine' .
Thanks for your work - seems to focus on what we can save perhaps for another go at civilisation. I tend to take a Toynbee view on the current one. Smile.
I don't like Monbiot at all but I've read Feral and thought it was excellent and I think it is appropriate for your purposes here. There may have been some Machine-y solutions posited but I don't remember any - perhaps I will need to reread it. If anything on first reading I remember thinking it was a bit woo!
agreed on Monbiot. there's a man I don't get at all.
I’m wondering about the lack of women writers on your list. Which leads me to wonder about diverse voices in this conversation. I write from the point of view of art, body wisdom, soul, and justice. I’m on Academia.edu. and study the impacts of industrialization and patriarchy on organic technologies like dance, voice, breath, and story. Is that part of this conversation? I think you have many more unconformists to consider. i could add a link my bibliography if anyone wants to see it.
Thanks for this comment Cynthia. This is not a complete list and is still open to suggestions. The focus is not just on great books, but ones that highlight the importance of digital minimalism, the negative impact of technology on what it means to be a person, or something that metaphorically expresses the dangers of technology as one of its primary themes. Thus, if you have a specific suggestion of female authors that fit those criteria, we'd be happy to take a look.
Just off the top of my head, Rebecca Solnit's book about Eadweard Muybridge, River of Shadows; Pip Pip: a Sideways Look at Time, by Jay Griffiths; and Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock by Jenny Odell.
I would also contend that a devotion to the hand underpins Ursula K Le Guin's entire body of work. For a taster, here's (a slightly glitchy version of) her short story The Day Before the Revolution, which is a sort of prequel to her masterpiece The Dispossessed.
https://www.d.umn.edu/cla/faculty/tbacig/hmcl3230/3230anth/day.html
I noticed this immediately. A tiny percentage of women. No Le Guin? No Solnit?
Hi Rosie - see my note above :)
I'll add a vote for Solnit. I've never read Le Guin, but she's on my list.
Mark! Please immediately read anything she wrote! You will not regret it!
Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein should be on the list. It is all about the hubris of people who pervert nature and come up with a monster. Deadly unintended consequences created by fallen Man pretending to be God. In the end he creates someone as flawed as himself, a monster in the image and likeness of his human creator.
Yes, great addition!
Didn't know Children of Men was a book. You can almost see that playing out now with reduced fertility from tech and wireless radiation. Will pick up the book!
It is quite different from the film and well worth a read!
Thanks Ruth for letting me know...need to read something else other than Lord of the Rings (three times now) and Conan the Cimmerian.
Yes, do yourself a favor and read the book. She’s an excellent author no matter what genre she is writing in and to be honest I hated the movie based on how magnificent I found the book. I would be interested to hear what you think after you read it, in terms of the films adaptation.
will be stopping by the library today to pick it up! Take care Amy, and maybe send me a message in a cpl weeks. I'm not the quickest reader (:
Great book. Like most books, far better than the movie. (LOTR may be a notable exception to that.)
I highly recommend watching films etc with an eye out for the source material, I've found lots of interesting books to read that way as well as some insights into how you take words from a page and reshape them for a screen.
While the Outer Planets trilogy by C.S Lewis is probably not going to top peoples favorite books list, I can definitely attest to That Hideous Strength (1945) being absolutely prophetic in terms of the kind of mindset. I found myself circling more text as I was reading through than any other book last year.
Dabi, I think "That Hideous Strength" was actually the book recommended the most - it really seems to speak to the current time and mindset.
I completely agree, I was absolutely shocked by the foresight and could not believe how simply Lewis laid out the motivations ans thouught process. Though I felt that way with Abolition of Man too. My comment was more for the plot itself.
May I suggest Man Alive by Chesterton. Not only is it a fun read but it presents some interesting solutions to the bureaucratic problems we are experiencing.
I just finished The Coddling of the American Mind and found it so compelling. Stolen Focus is on my list, so I'll likely head to that after a break for fiction :)
This is parenting specific, but I really appreciate The Montessori Baby & The Montessori Toddler. It's on theme in that the Montessori approach (how I grew up) is very grounded in presence and connection.
I also love books by Eckhart Tolle and wisdom leaders like Pema Chodron. These are considered to be more spiritual so may turn some off, but again I find the theme of presence and being here now to be the main throughline, so others in your orbit might appreciate them :) Thanks for sharing! Saving this list to return to :)
Thanks for your additions Miriam. The Montessori books will be a good fit for the family/parenting list (see here https://schooloftheunconformed.substack.com/p/letters-from-the-unconformed-vol). The movie of The Coddling of the American Mind that was just released on Substack is well done and brings the themes discussed in the book to life.
To this wonderful thread, I would like to add David Fleming's (literally) encyclopaedic 'Lean Logic - A Dictionary for the Future and How To Survive It'. It's a hearty, incredibly well-researched book, thought-provoking, convivial and practical in equal measure, which I have been reading all year in place of newspapers, at the table. There is also an online version of it here. https://leanlogic.online/ So much of what Ruth and Peco write about is echoed, or expanded upon, in here.
Then I would absolutely recommend 'Always Coming Home' by Ursula LeGuin, for its many layered exploration of possibilities for a truly living culture in her award-winning studies of a society, The Kesh. The people in the book 'might be going to have lived a long, long time from now in Northern California.' Everything is explored: technology, AI, war, song, humour, myth, craft, religion, love, death. She somehow packed her whole experience and wisdom, and that of her anthropologist parents and their Indigenous informants and friends, (such as Ishi) into this book, a masterpiece of speculative fiction.
Both this (in the Library of America version) and the hardback of Lean Logic, are richly illustrated with ink drawings and wood engravings, as good as the writing itself. I recommend both for your next winter's enjoyment, although maybe not as slim volumes for a train journey.
Thanks so much for these additions Caroline and your thoughtful reflections. Will be sure to take a look at them!
What a great list! You might consider Charles Foster's Being a Human as an addition.
An excellent contemporary read that is accessible to all and right on the money as far as unmachining goes, is Joshua Gibbs’ “Love What Lasts.” If you haven’t had the opportunity to read it, you must do so immediately!
Thanks JM - I have head many great things about Gibbs' book. Tessa Carman wrote an excellent review on it at the Front Porch Republic in case you have not seen it : https://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2023/07/fleeing-the-ephemeral-and-pursuing-the-eternal-a-review-of-love-what-lasts/
I loved reading how much Michael D. O’Brien has impacted you! I have a similar “impact” story. I’ve read all of books at least twice (I’ve read Strangers and Sojourners 4 times!). I have been saying I’m going to write to him for years just to tell him, “thank you, thank you for following the voice of the Lord and sacrificing so much to bring your art and writing to me and to the world.” I consider him a spiritual father of sorts (though I’ve never met him!) and it’s not an exaggeration to say that his writing and iconography have kept me tethered to God in very rough seasons of life. When I read Exogenesis, immediately told my husband that this was like a next generation Michael D. O’Brien novel. Haha!
Thanks for this lovely comment :) I have not read Strangers and Sojourners yet, but have read Father Elijah three times, and will look forward to rereading many others. It is very difficult to get a hold of him in person (he does not keep an internet presence), but if you send a letter to Our Lady Seat of Wisdom College in Barry's Bay Ontario, they will likely be able to pass it to him.
Oooh thanks for the tip! Oh you must read Strangers and Sojourners! And Island of the World if you haven’t already.
I will add it to my mountain of to-be-read books. I distinctly remember reading Island of the World because it was so heavy on the wrist! I would often read it while nursing my newborn and it was incredibly engrossing (and heavy) :)
One of my friends just had the same exact experience, only with The Father’s Tale😂
And Cry of Stone!!😂
Thanks, Beth. Michael is at a level of his own in his art and writing (and as a gentle, wise human being), and I’m grateful to be mentioned in the same sentence.
I have not yet read all his novels, but Island of the World, which you mentioned, was gripping and incredibly heartbreaking, yet redemptive. Strangers and Sojourners has been on my list for a while. I will have to move it up the line!
Thanks for this list!
Three more:
1) "The Natural Alien: Humankind and Environment" by Neil Evernden
("In using numbers to talk about the world [the environmentalist] forgets that his initial revolt was partly precipitated by people using numbers to talk about the world.")
2) "In the Absence of the Sacred: The Failure of Technology and the Survival of the Indian Nations" by Jerry Mander
3) "Red Medicine: Traditional Indigenous Rites of Birthing and Healing" by Patrisia Gonzales
(A book on birthing outside industrial systems.)
Walter Ong, "Orality and Literacy", is essential reading. He describes how people's thinking has changed over time and cultures with the introduction of the technologies of writing, and then printing. It's a fascinating read, and deserves a place alongside MacLuhan et al.
Please add “We” by Yevgeny Zamyatin, the precursor to Brave New World and 1984.
Thanks Diana - added. After reading the background on the book, I am surprised that I had never come across this one yet.
I didn’t come across it until graduate school myself, I am not sure why it is not more popular as it is accessible and witty.
E F Schumacher - Small is Beautiful, John McKnight - The Careless Society, many books from Steven Caney (about building, play,...), more from Ivan Illich, Georgi Markov, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions - Thomas Kuhn, The Invisible Rainbow - Firstenberg, so many more, just off the top of my head. Home Work - Lloyd Kahn, Permaculture - Bill Mollison, Emmanuel Levinas,...
Thank you very much for this exquisite list!
I would like to offer my own humble contribution to this list which I compiled in two separate posts (there is a little over lap with some of your suggestions but also many books not included in your excellent list).
Many of the books I offer in the posts I will link below are on the practical side of using our hands in service of life. While this may seem as dry or inconvenient to some (learning about the mycelium that connect tree roots or the methods and ways in which one can create a forest garden with blood, sweat, tears, patience and love) I feel those pathways of learning (and more importantly physical engagement with the natural world they necessitate) helps to dissolve the illusory veil of separation that “civilization” has trained us into perceiving between us and the wild more than human world.
Firstly, the initial post for my Substack Newsletter that contains a list of a number of books along with other forms of nourishment for the heart and mind (sound, shapes and colors) that I feel can help “keep one human” (or perhaps more accurately invite one to recognize the seed of humanity within, and then nourish it to unfold what it means to be human into increasing layers of beauty, complexity and grace).
https://gavinmounsey.substack.com/p/food-for-the-soul-and-medicine-for-the-earth
I hope you enjoy and i`ll share another comment below this linking more books.
Secondly, my Regenerative Resources list (a recommended reading list from my library)
This post shares the Suggested Supplementary Reading excerpt from Chapter 18 of my book
https://gavinmounsey.substack.com/p/regenerative-resources-a-recommended