3 Books to Shift Your Mindset
“Books are a uniquely portable magic”
– Stephen King
Here’s a different type of environmental book list. These volumes communicate a similar message to each other but in different and equally impactful ways.
As we strive to make better-informed decisions about the way we live, manifest lifestyles and design buildings. These books attempt to alter current thinking. Shifting our species away from an anthropocentric view of the world - towards a deeper appreciation for the biosphere and our planet as a collective whole.
Time for a new paradigm.
Ten Billion
- Stephen Emmott
A book about your possible future.
Rarely do books have such an impact on your soul. It's even rarer to have a book leave you with a feeling of utter hopelessness, anger and frustration. But then again that’s exactly the idea behind Ten Billion, it's to draw attention to the existential threat we pose to ourselves. A threat our species will now confront.
Emmott has produced a book of apocalyptic reality that seems almost inevitable as a result of our capitalist system that promotes unlimited growth.
The layout of the book is so simple with large bold text and impactful images that layout the absurdity of the status quo and the total iniquity of our species.
It's the type of book that follows you around. It directly impacts the way you see the world. So if you had to read one of the books on this list, it should be Ten Billion.
The One-Straw Revolution
- Masanobu Fukuoka
“Until there is a reversal of the sense of values which cares more for size and appearance than for quality, there will be no solving the problem of food pollution.”
- Masanobu Fukuoka.
What appears as a simple book about growing your food develops into a stunning manifesto and philosophical rethink of the global systems that feed us.
Fukuoka one of the founders of ‘permaculture’ the philosophy of land management that encourages natural ecosystems, regenerative agriculture, community resilience and re-wilding principles.
The One-Straw Revolution is about re-evaluating your guiding life principles to live in harmony with the natural order of things.
Walden
- Henry Thoreau
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
- Henry Thoreau.
This book is simply about one person's attempt to live alone in the wilderness.
Walden was an avid reader, a writer, a philosopher and wanted to prove that happiness can be achieved through simplicity and a close association with nature. He rejected the idea that happiness can be achieved through the acquisition of things.
Just as in Thoreau’s time, he was conscious that the beauty and splendour of nature was disappearing and that we were losing our authentic connection with the natural world - our first home.
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Book List
Ten Billion - Stephen Emmott
The One-Straw Revolution - Masanobu Fukuoka
Walden - Henry Thoreau
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