august 2018 – good to read

How Soon Is Now? The Handbook of Social Change

Daniel Pinchbeck
Introduction by Russell Brand, Preface by Sting
«The actions we take over the next decade are critical. They will determine the destiny of our descendants and the fate of our world. How Soon is Now? presents a compelling manifesto for personal and planetary change. It proposes a new narrative for a unified social movement. Through global cooperation, we can face this collective threat – ecologically, socially, politically, and spiritually. We can launch a new operating system for human society based on regenerative principles. Accepting this crisis as our initiation, we can choose to evolve to the next level of consciousness as a species. We can do more than survive: we can thrive.»
PenguinRandomHouse, July 2018

Intrinsic Hope: Living Courageously in Troubled Time

Kate Davies
«We are living in an era of unprecedented crises, resulting in widespread feelings of fear, despair, and grief. Now, more than ever, maintaining hope for the future is a monumental task. Intrinsic Hope offers an antidote to these feelings. It shows how conventional ideas of hope are rooted in the belief that life will conform to our wishes and how this leads to disappointment and a dismal view of the future. As an alternative, the author offers «intrinsic hope,» a powerful, liberating, and positive approach to life based on having a deep trust in whatever happens. Davies shows how to cultivate intrinsic hope through practical tips and six mindful habits for living a positive, courageous life in these troubled times.»
New Society Publishers, Mai 2018

The Prison Letters of Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandala, Edited by Sahm Venter 
«Organised chronologically, The Prison Letters of Nelson Mandela begins in Pretoria Local Prison, where Mandela was held following his 1962 trial. In 1964, Mandela was taken to Robben Island Prison. After eighteen years, he was transferred to Pollsmoor Prison, a large complex outside of Cape Town with beds and better food, but where he and four of his comrades were isolated and confined to a rooftop cell. Finally, Mandela was taken to Victor Verster Prison in 1988, where he was held until his release on February 11, 1990. During his 10,052 days of incarceration, the future leader of South Africa wrote a multitude of letters to unyielding prison authorities, fellow activists, government officials, and, most memorably, to his courageous wife, Winnie, and his five children.»
Norton, June 2018

My Year of Rest and Relaxation

Otessa Moshfegh
«A shocking, hilarious and strangely tender novel about a young woman’s experiment in narcotic hibernation, aided and abetted by one of the worst psychiatrists in the annals of literature. Our narrator has many of the advantages of life, on the surface. Young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate, she lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan paid for, like everything else, by her inheritance. But there is a vacuum at the heart of things, and it isn’t just the loss of her parents in college, or the way her Wall Street boyfriend treats her, or her sadomasochistic relationship with her alleged best friend. It’s the year 2000 in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong?»
Penguin Books, July 2018

Fruit of the Drunken Tree

Ingrid Rojas Contreras
«Set in Colombia at the height of Pablo Escobar’s violent reign, this is the story of a sheltered girl and her teenage maid who strike an unlikely friendship that threatens to undo them both. Seven-year-old Chula and her older sister Cassandra enjoy carefree lives thanks to their gated community in Bogotá, but the threat of kidnappings, car bombs, and assassinations hover just outside the neighborhood walls, where the godlike drug lord Escobar continues to elude authorities and capture the attention of the nation. When their mother hires Petrona, a live-in maid from the city’s guerrilla-occupied slum, Chula makes it her mission to understand Petrona’s mysterious ways.»
PenguinRandomHouse, July 2018

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