kimmag92's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
3.0
jasmineehare's review against another edition
informative
medium-paced
3.25
I wish I had looked at the author more closely before starting this one; I read his book Solitude and found it to be pretty middling as well. I found the chapter on care quite moving, but aside from that, he doesn’t present many original ideas and I was just wading through a lot I had heard before.
chrislatray's review against another edition
3.0
I liked this book enough to want to make sure I read Harris's other books, at least one of which I realize I already own (Solitude). It's not that I didn't like this one; the information is solid and the writing is beautiful. I don't know that the subtitle does justice to what the book is actually about, though, and I went into it expecting something different. It's more of a "this is the mess we've made of the world" book without a lot of attention to building a better one. Which is fine, just not what I was hoping for when I selected it to read.
Still, I could just as easily give the book four stars except the last section related to Harris's husband's mother, while lovely and heartbreaking, seems a forced-fit into the rest of the story. The book is just a little disjointed, I guess I'd say.
Still, I could just as easily give the book four stars except the last section related to Harris's husband's mother, while lovely and heartbreaking, seems a forced-fit into the rest of the story. The book is just a little disjointed, I guess I'd say.
gracemacdonald94's review against another edition
reflective
medium-paced
3.0
This book was fine, but sometimes irked me. It has some great sound bytes and would be a great introduction to some anti-capitalist or anti-consumerist concepts. However, it stands on the shoulders of giants, and I think it is less nuanced than the work of someone like Naomi Klein. Also, I felt like the view was narrowly Western, and was annoyed that - despite the long descriptions of birchbark canoe crafting - Harris didn't discuss indigenous knowledges or colonialism. Instead, the book bounced back to Aristotle. It just felt like a very narrow take on the world's consumption problem. Ah well.