The Good LIfe and Back to the books

The books keep jumping out at me. But one we took with us on our Peruvian adventure was really a collection of blogs from UM professor of psychology, Chris Peterson.

    Pursuing the Good Life  is a collection of short takes from his blog The Good Life hosted at the Psychology Today website. Peterson, from the 'positive psychology' school reflects on what makes us tick and how and why 'positive.
psychology' is useful in pursuing a good life. The book rearranges the blogs in an order that allows us to follow his approach. As blog entries each is short, usually somewhat humorous but very poignant and worth reflecting on. Ellen and I both enjoyed it and now we may occasionally peek at this blog site to see what's going on between his ears.

Another bog I visit occasionally is Gaian Economics by British economist Molly Scott Cato. As it turns out her new book was on the new book shelf yesterday and of course, I picked it up and read the intro earlier this morning.

 The Bioregional Economy is Cato's view of what a sustainable economy could look like. Her writing is crisp, erudite, and to the point. One wonders if writing blogs helps writers improve their overall writing. I'm sure I'll be sharing tidbits from this one over the next few weeks. if you want to buy this one at a discount she has arranged a discount from the publisher after her chagrin at how they priced the book(her contracting publisher Earthscan was consumed by giant Taylor and Francis during the writing of the book). The bibliography itself is rich with other delicious possibilities!

I also stumbled on another interesting tome yesterday from  a New Zealand environmental educator that addresses a growing interest for me - the nature of citizenship and empowerment on a finite planet. Children, citizenship, and environment : nurturing a democratic imagination in a changing world by Bronwyn Hayward tackles the limits of current environmental education emphasis and argues for a reconceptualization and orientation that is built on empowerment.

This ties well with the book mentioned in yesterday's blog on empowerment and possibility. This intersection of possibility, complexity, empowerment, justice, nature, scale, conviviality holds some power over me at the moment. As I explore how all this moves together towards a more sustainable future I'll be trying to articulate how we might be energized and responsive to it.

Film at 11:00