Hopeful books about our future

I'm looking for non-fiction books that make hope for the future. I'm burnt out.

I have done it all, for I don't know, 30plus years now. From vegan cooking on the streets, protests, sit-ins, urban gardening projects, rural gardening, reforestation, so many things, from big movements to small projects, everything.

For various reasons, not all political, I'm pretty down and feel everything is doomed.

Any books that are more positive, we are making it or at least de could make it?

I would really apppreciate some recommendations. English or German.

25 points · 18 comments · view on lemmy.world

18 Comments

vudu@slrpnk.net · 10 pts · 2d (1 reply)

I would search for non-fiction Solarpunk. Check out The day the world stops shopping by J.B. MacKinnon or Sixty Harvests Left by Philip Lymbery or The Carbon Almanac: It's Not Too Late or The Rights of Nature: A Legal Revolution That Could Save the World by David R Boyd or Half-Earth Socialism: A Plan to Save the Future from Extinction, Climate Change and Pandemics by Troy Vettesse

Also join us on slrpnk.net!

philtron@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 2d

Thank you! I was not aware of non fiction solar punk!

TIN@feddit.uk · 5 pts · 2d (2 replies)

Humankind by Rutger Bregman is really positive

philtron@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 2d (1 reply)

Yes, absolutely, I have read that one.

oeuf@slrpnk.net · 2 pts · 2d

Just started reading it based on this recommendation and it is absolute medicine!

Eq0@literature.cafe · 5 pts · 2d (1 reply)

Same here, man!

I can start advising for Factfulness: a book showing how our perception of geographical reality is lagging behind and quite some elements are better than we recover them to be. It starts being a bit old itself, unfortunately, since it’s from 2018, but it was a pleasurable and uplifting read.

philtron@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 2d

Thank you! I just started reading and it looks exactly like what I was looking for.

kat_angstrom@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 2d (1 reply)

Becky Chambers brand of cozy SciFi might be up your alley

philtron@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 2d

Thank you!

darklamer@feddit.org · 3 pts · 2d (1 reply)

https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/453652/not-the-end-of-the-world-by-ritchie-hannah/9781529931242

philtron@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 2d

This is excellent! Thank you!

Okokimup@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 2d (1 reply)

Blueprint for a Revolution by Matthew Miller is a surprisingly hopeful recipe for how to make change.

Hope for Cynics by Jamil Zaki

Inheritors of the Earth by Chris D Thomas

philtron@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 2d

Thank you! I actually own Blueprint for a Revolution and just started reading it

supersquirrel@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 2d

Braiding Sweetgrass - great all around read

The Most Dangerous Book - FASCINATING and really inspiring, one of the most important stories of resistance in the 20th century in my opinion.

Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff - Podcast about inspiring badasses from history that don't get enough attention, Magpie the host is awesome and each episode usually has good nonfiction recommendations for reading on the subject!

edit I misread thought this was about historical nonfiction, I'll have to think but there are definitely lots of nonfiction books that talk about how the are genuine reasons to be hopeful about our future, because the things that holding us back aren't what is physically impossible or not...

Hazel@piefed.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 2d

I find Simard pleasant to read. When the Forest Breathes is her most recent afaik.

Against the Machine by Kingsnorth is top of my to-read pile. From the blurbs and leafing through it it seems to end on a fairly positive note.

pineapple@lemmy.ml · 1 pts · 2d

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SocialistVibes01@lemmy.ml · -5 pts · 2d (2 replies)

You're just the "feels good" type of progressive.

Hope for the future is built from mud, tears, sweat, and blood.

philtron@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 2d

Dar unknown, I have been beaten up by Nazis several times in my life, including fractured jaw, broken arm and several concussions. Two people I have known, not friends, but spoken to and fought along with, have been killed.

I live in an area with several violent right wing activists and last week during a walk with my dog I was told: "wir kriegen dich noch, du linke Schwuchtel."

I was in teargassed, peppersprayed, spent several days in jail for the usual and was fired because of that.

But that was not relevant for my post.

I'm just a bit weary and tired after decades. Hopefully you will never get to that point.

Have a nice day :)

Okokimup@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 2d

We have to have an idea of what we want the future to be in order to build it, and we have to have joy to maintain the will to build it.