Stories For Life Library
Please head to our Notion to find a growing database of example Love Stories and Horror Stories, as well as a database of books, podcasts, projects etc. that inspired (and continue to inspire) this work.
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Three books to read now
1. Doughnut Economics
Kate Raworth’s work was a key influence on Stories For Life. Her book offers one of the best and most accessible introductions to economics, the role the economy plays in our world, how our current economic design is dangerous, and what it needs to be upgraded to so that we can “meet the needs of all, within the means of the planet”.
2. Braiding Sweetgrass
There are many options for gaining an understanding of how western knowledge practices are converging with indigenous or ancient practices, but Robin Wall Kimmerer’s is one of the most beautiful. An enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she is also a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology.
3. Hospicing Modernity
If you’re seeking a deeper understanding of the root causes of our crisis symptoms, and what it will take to heal together, this is a beautiful and challenging place to start. As Bayo Akomolefe puts it: “This book is rude…and right there – my fellow modern citizen – right there, in the author’s cosmological rudeness, lies her deepest medicine.”
“This between two worlds period of history contains myriad details of an emerging economy in which the word ‘development’ takes on a profoundly different meaning. Its core value is stewardship rather than extraction.
It is motivated by concerns for future generations, not by what the economy needs today. It cherishes qualities found in the natural world, thanks to millions of years of natural evolution. It also respects social practices – some of them very old ones – learned by other societies and in other times.
This new kind of development is not backwards looking, it embraces technological innovations too, but with a different mental model for what they should be used for. With every action we take, however small – each one a new way to feed, shelter and heal ourselves in partnership with living systems – the easier it becomes.”
