Book cover of The Great Good Place

Book description


The landmark survey that celebrates all the places where people hang out--and is helping to spawn their revival

A New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice

"Third places," or "great good places," are the many public places where people can gather, put aside the concerns of home and work (their…


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Why read it?

1 author picked The Great Good Place as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I love this book because Ray Oldenburg convinced me that a society built only around homes and offices is a sick society.

He calls the cafes, coffee shops, and neighborhood bars our "third places," and once I read his argument, I could not stop seeing how much of my own sense of belonging comes from exactly these spots, not the ones where I work or sleep.

As someone who has spent years studying what holds communities together, I found in Oldenburg both a name and a theory for something I had always felt but never articulated: we need places that…

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