All the books I read in 2018

I did this last year and people seemed to really like it, so hey, why not, let’s do it again this year.  Here is my list of all the books I read this year, once again inspired by Shane Parish over at the Farnham Street blog.  I post it in the hope that it might act as inspiration to create more time in 2019 for the quiet focus of reading, for the thrill and delight of a good book.  Also because it gives you a sense of the kind of stuff I’m coming across in my search for insights on the imagination. And because hopefully you might have a few days off over Christmas and be looking for something to read.  I’ll probably add to it over the next few days as I remember things I’ve forgotten. So, here we go…

Patrick Reinsborough & Doyle Canning: Re:Imagining Change: how to use story-based strategy to win campaigns, build movements and change the world, PM Press, 2017.

Amy Seefeldt, Centring the Ecological Imagination, Schumacher College (MSc Dissertation), 2017.

Tom Hirons, Sometimes a Wild God, Hedgespoken Press, 2015.

David Holmgren: Retrosuburbia: the downshifter’s guide to a resilient future.  Meliodora Publishing, 2018.

Rebecca Solnit: Men Explain Things to Me, Granta, 2014.

Norman Doige: The Brain that Changes Itself: stories of personal triumph from the frontiers of science, Penguin, 2007.

Graham Smith: Democratic Innovations: designing institutions for citizen participation, Cambridge University Press, 2009.

David Whyte (ed): How Corrupt is Britain? Pluto Press, 2015,

Annette Simmons: The Story Factor: inspiration, influence and persuasion through the art of storytelling, Basic Books, 2006.

Michael McCarthy, The Moth Snowstorm: nature and joy, John Murray, 2015.

Kim Brooks: Small Animals: parenthood in the age of fear, FlatIron Books, 2018.

Peter Kalmus: Being the Change: live well and spark a climate revolution, New Society, 2017.

Giles Smith, Lost in Music, Picador, 2000.

Alex Evans, The Myth Gap: What Happens When Evidence and Arguments Aren’t Enough, Eden Project Books, 2017.

Marcin Gerwin, Citizens Assemblies: Guide to Democracy that Works,  Open Plan Foundation, otwartyplan.org.

Sumon Basar, Douglas Coupland, Hans Ulrich Obrist, The Age of Earthquakes: A Guide to the Extreme Present, Penguin, 2015.

Damon Young, The Art of Reading, Scribe, 2017.

P.F. Strawson, Freedom and Resentment and Other Essays, Tayor & Francis, 1976.

William Powers: Hamlet’s BlackBerry: a practical philosophy for building a good life in the digital age, Scribe, 2013.

Johann Hari: Lost Connections: uncovering the real causes of depression – and the unexpected solutions,  Bloomsbury Circus, 2018.

Stephen T. Asma: The Evolution of Imagination, University of Chicago Press, 2017.

Stuart Brown: Play: how it shapes the brain, opens the imagination and invigorates the soul, Avery, 2009.

Jay Griffiths: Kith, Penguin, 2014.

Tony Schwartz: The Way we’re working isn’t working: four forgotten needs that energise great performance, Simon & Schuster, 2011.

Guy J. Singer: British Transition Town Money and other alternative currencies, CuriousBankNotes, 2019.

Viv Albertine: Clothes, Clothes, Clothes, Music, Music, Music, Boys, Boys, Boys, Faber & Faber, 2014.

Anthony Brandt & David Eagleman: The Runaway Species: how human creativity remakes the world, Canongate, 2017.

Derrick de Kerckhove, The Skin of Culture: investigating the new electronic reality, Kogan Page, 1995.

Boel Westin: Tove Jansson – Life, Art, Words, Sort of Books, 2018.

Rob Young & Irmin Schmidt: Can: All Gates Open – the story of Can, Faber and Faber, 2018.

Leonard Mlodinow: Elastic: flexible thinking in a constantly changing world, Allen Lane, 2018.

Simon Baron-Cohen: Zero Degrees of Empathy: a new theory of human cruelty and kindness, Penguin, 2011.

Andrew Keen, The Internet is Not the Answer, Atlantic Books, 2015.

Tim Wu: The Attention Merchants: the epic struggle to get inside our heads. Atlantic Books, 2017.

Gillian Judson: Engaging Imagination in Ecological Education: Practical Strategies for Teachers, Pacific Educational Press, 2015.

Oli Mould, Against Creativity, Verso, 2018.

The Cultural Learning Alliance, Imagine Nation: the value of cultural learning, 2017,

Susan Clayton et al.: Mental Health and Our Changing Climate: Impacts, Implications, and Guidance, American Psychological Association/ecoAmerica, 2017.

Joan Lindsay: The Secret of Hanging Rock: ETT Imprint, 2016.

Caitline DeSilvey, Simon Naylor, Colin Sackett: Anticipatory History, Uniform Books, 2011.

James Bridle: New Dark Age: technology and the end of the future, Verso, 2018.

Ben Goldfarb: Eager: the surprising secret life of beavers and why they matter, Chelsea Green Publishing, 2018.

Richard Barbrook, Imaginary Futures: from thinking machines to the global village, Pluto Press, 2007.

Ruth Levitas, Utopia as Method: the imaginary reconstitution of society, Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.

Maggie Jackson, Distracted: the erosion of attention and the coming dark age, Prometheous Books, 2008.

Erik Kilinenberg, Palaces for the People: how to build a more equal and united society, The Bodley Head, 2018.

Paul Hawken (ed), Drawdown: the most comprehensive plan ever proposed to reverse global warming, Penguin, 2017.

Robert Paul Smith, “Where did you go?” “Out”. “What did you do?” “Nothing”. The World’s Work, 1958.

Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett: The Inner Level: how more equal societies reduce stress, restore sanity and improve everyone’s well-being, Allen Lane, 2018.

Ivan Illych, Deschooling Society, Marion Boyars, 1970.

David Sax, The Revenge of Analog: real things and why they matter, Public Affairs, 2017.

Stephen Duncombe, Dream: re-imagining progressive politics in an age of fantasy, The New Press, 2007.

James Williams: Stand out of our light: freedom and resistance in the attention economy, Cambridge University Press, 2018.

Dominic Sandbrook: The Great British Dream Factory: the strange history of our national imagination, Allen Lane, 2015,

Keri Smith, The Imaginary World of … , Penguin, 2014.