I’m kicking off the whole Bookclub concept with Lucy, a wonderful book blogger, at Gertrude and Alice in Bondi. You can download the Bookclub Reading Guide here. The aim is to assist everyone (you guys!) in getting together to discuss the big, overwhelming, despairing stuff – using Wild and Precious as the pivot point – so that we can all feel less overwhelmed, anxious and despairing. One such, is a giant, bookclub program that I hope will spread around the world.
In the book I then commit to extending the “conversation” out into the world. I also argue that holding an “adda” (a West Bengalese tradition of holding large, deep and communal conversations accompanied by tea), or salon, is a great technique for reconnecting with life. We sweep them aside, we scroll, we shop…and thus the loneliness and anxiety mounts. I essentially asked them to help me flesh out the issues, tell me where the pain points where, share what was overwhelming them, so I could best find a path back to the wild and precious life we love so much.Īnyway, these discussion groups were super fun, and a big thread I tease out in the book is that much of our pain and despair stems from the fact we don’t talk together about complex issues. These people – mostly strangers – wanted to chat about “what’s going on with life”, so I invited them to various get-togethers, usually over some wine and cheese, to talk through climate, Covid-19, kids’ anxiety, our collective anxiety, political fragmentation, racism… the whole painful lot. When I was writing This One Wild and Precious Life, I held a bunch of discussion groups with people I met out and about.
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