The Practice of Belonging: Six Lessons from Vibrant Communities to Combat Loneliness, Foster Diversi

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Author : Lisa Kentgen, PhD
Genre : Family & Relationships

Summary : An inspirational guide to the 6 core qualities of healthy communities, for anyone looking to build community as a source of connection and a vehicle for social change After two years meeting with different communities in the US, psychologist Lisa Kentgen identified 6 key traits of vibrant, healthy communities that we can all apply to our own lives and networks: Commitment to care Acceptance Diversity Skillful conflict resolution Bonding rituals Hospitality Each chapter focuses on one of these traits, highlighting a particular community as a case study of how it can be put into practice. You’ll learn about a wide range of successful community models, including a tiny-home village for people who had been chronically houseless in Austin, Texas; a study circle to build connection between Native and non-Native people in a small town in South Dakota; a 500-member community choir in Columbus, Ohio; and a Buddhist center in Barre, Massachusetts committed to bringing greater diversity to the Dharma. Throughout the book, you’ll reflect: How can we cultivate these traits of vibrant community in our own lives? What would it look like to prioritize caring and acceptance in our interactions with others? How can we create a climate of true inclusivity, one where our differences both challenge and strengthen us? How can we learn to feel more comfortable with tension and acquire the skills to move through conflict toward creative solutions? What would happen if we incorporated meaningful rituals into our communities and made a point of celebrating each other? With intention and practice, we can transform our social relationships and build communities that appreciate difference, encourage authentic expression, and foster an environment of belonging and mutual care. This book will inspire you to make the transformative leap from “me” to “we,” creating communal, loving spaces in which to connect--and thrive--together.

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Author : W.G. Sebald
Genre : Fiction

Summary : From one of the undisputed masters of world literature, a haunting novel of sublime ambition and power about a man whose fragmentary memories of a lost childhood lead him on a quest across Europe in search of his heritage. Jacques Austerlitz is a survivor – rescued as a child from the Nazi threat. In the summer of 1939 he arrives in Wales to live with a Methodist minister and his wife. As he grows up, they tell him nothing of his origins, and he reaches adulthood with no understanding of where he came from. Late in life, a sudden memory brings him the first glimpse of his origins, launching him on a journey into a family history that has been buried. The story of Jacques Austerlitz unfolds over the course of a 30-year conversation that takes place in train stations and travellers’ stops across England and Europe. In Jacques Austerlitz, Sebald embodies the universal human search for identity, the struggle to impose coherence on memory, a struggle complicated by the mind’s defences against trauma. Along the way, this novel of many riches dwells magically on a variety of subjects – railway architecture, military fortifications, insects, plants and animals, the constellations, works of art, a small circus and the three cities that loom over the book, London, Paris and Prague – in the service of its astounding vision.

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Author : Gabriele Balbi
Genre : History

Summary : As media environments and communication practices evolve over time, so do theoretical concepts. This book analyzes some of the most well-known and fiercely discussed concepts of the digital age from a historical perspective, showing how many of them have pre-digital roots and how they have changed and still are constantly changing in the digital era. Written by leading authors in media and communication studies, the chapters historicize 16 concepts that have become central in the digital media literature, focusing on three main areas. The first part, Technologies and Connections, historicises concepts like network, media convergence, multimedia, interactivity and artificial intelligence. The second one is related to Agency and Politics and explores global governance, datafication, fake news, echo chambers, digital media activism. The last one, Users and Practices, is finally devoted to telepresence, digital loneliness, amateurism, user generated content, fandom and authenticity. The book aims to shed light on how concepts emerge and are co-shaped, circulated, used and reappropriated in different contexts. It argues for the need for a conceptual media and communication history that will reveal new developments without concealing continuities and it demonstrates how the analogue/digital dichotomy is often a misleading one.

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Author : Mervyn Peake
Genre : Fiction

Summary : 'Gormenghast is, to my mind and to my taste, a perfect creation' Neil Gaiman Welcome to the world of Gormenghast, the classic fantasy series from the imagination of Mervyn Peake As the first novel opens, Titus, heir to Lord Sepulchrave, has just been born: he stands to inherit the miles of rambling stone and mortar that stand for Gormenghast Castle. Inside, all events are predetermined by a complex ritual, lost in history, understood only by Sourdust, Lord of the Library. There are tears and strange laughter; fierce births and deaths beneath umbrageous ceilings; dreams and violence and disenchantment contained within a labyrinth of stone. 'A gorgeous volcanic eruption... A work of extraordinary imagination' New Yorker

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Author : Jane Jacobs
Genre : Central business districts

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Author : William T Vollmann
Genre : Death

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Author : Mark Harvey
Genre : Social Science

Summary : In this book, the complexity and the significance of the foods we eat are analyzed from a variety of perspectives, by sociologists, economists, geographers and anthropologists. The first part of the book focuses on theoretical and conceptual issues, the second part considers processes of formal and informal regulation, while the third part examines social and political responses to industrialised food production and mass consumption.