Anyone interested in a resilience book club?

[jenniferkobernik]

I have a few books I’d like to get around to reading that deal with societal decline, crises, building resilience, etc. I was thinking that if a few people here were interested, we could potentially agree on a book and then read and discuss a chapter a week or so.

Some of the books I have/want to read:

Volume 1 of Decline of the West by Oswald Spengler

The Great Crash 1929 by John Kenneth Galbraith

Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual by Bill Mollison

Where the Wasteland Ends by Theodore Roszak

Small is Beautiful by E F Schumacher

A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous Fourteenth Century by Barbara Tuchman

*Overshoot by William Catton Jr.

*The Limits of Growth

*Living in the Long Emergency by Jim Kunstler

*suggested in the comments

And I’m open to other suggestions. Anyone interested?

Comments

[prayergardens]

It's a great idea! I've read a few of those books sometime ago and wouldn't mind revisiting any of them. I also got a lot out of the William Catton book, Overshoot mentioned by JMG numerous times.

I just got one one of the Rosemary Sutcliff books about post-Roman Britain mentioned in a blog comments somewhere. I'd put in a vote for historical fiction as part of learning about resilient lifestyles.

I am very interested but would probably only make 50% of the discussions due to work and family.

[jenniferkobernik]

Those are great suggestions, I will add them to the post! I really like good historical fiction as well, for immersion into different lifestyles. I’m thinking discussions would take place here (although if someone wanted to host a Zoom call or something, that would be cool too!), so you could participate at your leisure. Neither my internet nor my time management skills are strong enough for video meetings most of the time!

[corrach_the_blue]

How were you thinking of doing the discussion? A chat of some kind or in a comments thread here on dreamwidth? I’d be hard pressed to make a scheduled discussion but could participate in an asynchronous comment discussion

[jenniferkobernik]

I was thinking here on my dreamwidth, in the comments. It would need to be asynchronous for me, too (as I’m sure anyone who has observed my delayed and sporadic replies here would not be surprised by 😂)

[corrach_the_blue]

Sounds perfect. I’m definitely interested

[drhooves]

I would also be interested, and consider the comments a "good enough" approach to the discussion aspect. Zoom meetings of course require scheduling, and I'm better at working on my own schedule, with much variation and little commitment...:-)

The Limits of Growth is another higher level view, but is kinda dry.

Living in the Long Emergency by Jim Kunstler provides some working examples of how to adapt to the future in terms of skills.

The Survivor Library has tons of old books no longer in copyright, many topics, and all down-loadable:

http://www.survivorlibrary.com/library-download.html

You could spend a lifetime just reading those resources.

[jenniferkobernik]

Excellent! I, too, am of the “much variation and little commitment” school of scheduling, heh.

Thank you for those recommendations!