Category: Read

Paradise Built in Hell

 

The most startling thing about disasters, according to award-winning author Rebecca Solnit, is not merely that so many people rise to the occasion, but that they do so with joy. That joy reveals an ordinarily unmet yearning for community, purposefulness, and meaningful work that disaster often provides. A Paradise Built in Hell is an investigation of the moments of altruism, resourcefulness, and generosity that arise amid disaster’s grief and disruption and considers their implications for everyday life. It points to a new vision of what society could become-one that is less authoritarian and fearful, more collaborative and local.

Available here

 

 

The Knowledge Want to read more about the behind-the-scenes fundamentals of how our modern world works, and how you could reboot civilisation if you ever needed to...? Check out The Knowledge - available now in paperback, Kindle and audiobook.

Another Escape

Another-Escape-Vol-3-Cover1

Many of the core themes of The Knowledge deal with the traditional crafts and expertise that used to be prevalent in the recent past, but are lamentably sliding into obscurity today. ‘Another Escape‘ is a fascinating new magazine that explores many of these areas.

The delights in this current issue (Volume Three) include: international efforts to construct comprehensive seed banks; how the threads of the lumberjack shirt weave their way back through time and across cultures; how the essential oils are extracted out of plants to make perfumes; reviving the ancient art of Korean paper-making (pictured below); coppicing woodlands for sustainable timber supply; the skill of colliers in creating charcoal; and bamboo-framed bicycles.

Another-Escape-Vol-3-inside‘Another Escape’ is a British-published magazine, but has a truly global outlook in the eclectic topics it features. The magazine is a feast for the eyes as well, and the accompanying illustrations and photography are absolutely gorgeous.

See the Another Escape website for more details and to place a subscription.

The Knowledge Want to read more about the behind-the-scenes fundamentals of how our modern world works, and how you could reboot civilisation if you ever needed to...? Check out The Knowledge - available now in paperback, Kindle and audiobook.