A Non-Fiction Reading List for People Who Seek Hope

After Donald Trump became president in 2016, like many others I became increasingly pessimistic about the future. My anxiety peaked. My outlook plummeted. I began to wonder if all was lost.

That changed in 2018 when I met a group of people in my then hometown of Timmins, Ontario, who were taking positive, grass roots actions that demonstrated there was still a way through. Some of them were practicing regenerative farming techniques. Others were taking a farm to fork approach to food and gut health and sharing their knowledge with the community. One proactive group was in the throes of forming a cooperative farm situated on some three hundred acres of land.

Thanks to these local interactions, I eventually found my way to the work of change makers throughout the world.

I read Ancient Futures by Helena Norberg-Hodge, founding director of Local Futures, an international non-profit organization dedicated to renewing ecological, social and spiritual wellbeing by strengthening communities and local economies. I also watched her film The Economics of Happiness.
I listened to a podcast titled From What if to What Next, hosted by Rob Hopkins, the co-founder of Transition Network and Transition Town Totnes, and read his books The Transition Handbook, From What Is to What If, and, most recently, How to Fall in Love with the Future.
I discovered the work of Mary Reynolds, founder of the global grassroots movement We Are the ARK (Acts of Restorative Kindness) and author of a book by the same name. Later, I was inspired to apply her teachings in my own yard.
I watched a TEDx Talk titled 3000-year-old solutions to modern problems which introduced me to Dr. Lyla June Johnston and the idea that humans were, and could be again, a keystone species in the health of the natural world. In 2024, I also took a class through her newly founded ReHuman School.