Here are 100 books that Making is Connecting fans have personally recommended if you like
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Green sketching opened my eyes to the beauty and joy in my life that I’d never noticed before, beauty and joy that cost nothing to me or the planet. It quietened my busy brain, reduced my anxiety, and made me much more resilient. I’m now trying to help others put down their phones and pick up a pencil. Because when we change what we look at, we can change how we feel. And I’m convinced that once we see and appreciate nature’s beauty with fresh eyes, we’ll start to love and take care of it again.
As someone who straddles the sciences and the arts, I devoured this book and loved learning more about why participating in the arts, whether as a creator or a beholder, brings me so much joy.
I had no idea the cells in my heart actively respond to aesthetic stimuli!
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A life-altering journey through the science of neuroaesthetics, which offers proof for how our brains and bodies transform when we participate in the arts—and how this knowledge can improve our health, enable us to flourish, and build stronger communities.
“This book blew my mind!”—Angela Duckworth, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Grit
Many of us think of the arts as entertainment—a luxury of some kind. In Your Brain on Art, authors Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross show how activities from painting and dancing to expressive writing, architecture, and more are essential to our lives.…
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
My whole life has been about the power of making. I’m a writer and educator specialising in craft. Previously, I worked at the Crafts Council in London, and now I write for craft magazines with a particular interest in the connective nature of craft in communities and the relationship between craft and wellbeing. I’m also a parent to a learning-disabled adult, so understand learning differences (and care). I recently started Quickthorn Books to showcase more makers. I run workshops in darning, crochet, knitting, and, most recently, making rag rugs. I’m proud to be a trustee of Heritage Crafts, and I can usually be found knitting in the corner.
Betsy is known as the Godmother of craftivism, and we had the pleasure of interviewing her for our book. She shows that in a world in which we can feel increasingly powerless, small acts of creativity can give us agency and make us feel like we have a voice. Her work with affirmations and collecting the stories of others continues online.
Craftivism is a worldwide movement that operates at the intersection where craft and activism meet; Craftivism the book is full of inspiration for crafters who want to create works that add to the greater good. With interviews and profiles of craftivists who are changing the world with their art, and through examples that range from community embroidery projects, stitching in prisons, revolutionary ceramics, AIDS activism, yarn bombing, and crafts that facilitate personal growth, Craftivism provides imaginative examples of how crafters can be creative and altruistic at the same time.
Artists profiled in the book are from the United States, Canada,…
My whole life has been about the power of making. I’m a writer and educator specialising in craft. Previously, I worked at the Crafts Council in London, and now I write for craft magazines with a particular interest in the connective nature of craft in communities and the relationship between craft and wellbeing. I’m also a parent to a learning-disabled adult, so understand learning differences (and care). I recently started Quickthorn Books to showcase more makers. I run workshops in darning, crochet, knitting, and, most recently, making rag rugs. I’m proud to be a trustee of Heritage Crafts, and I can usually be found knitting in the corner.
Sarah runs the Craftivist Collective, and her work proves that it’s possible to protest in a gentle and mindful way.
Her book outlines some of the ways she has managed to create change through quiet activism, and she has a new book coming out soon, which I’m looking forward to reading.
'This is mindful activism . . . thought-out, strategic and engaging' Guardian
'I love what Sarah does! It's quiet activism for everyone including introverts' Jon Ronson
'Sarah Corbett mixes an A-grade mind with astonishing creativity and emotional awareness' Lucy Siegle
If we want a world that is beautiful, kind and fair, shouldn't our activism be beautiful, kind and fair?
Award-winning campaigner and founder of the global Craftivist Collective Sarah Corbett shows how to respond to injustice not with apathy or aggression, but with gentle, effective protest.
This is a manifesto - for a more respectful and contemplative activism; for conversation…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
My whole life has been about the power of making. I’m a writer and educator specialising in craft. Previously, I worked at the Crafts Council in London, and now I write for craft magazines with a particular interest in the connective nature of craft in communities and the relationship between craft and wellbeing. I’m also a parent to a learning-disabled adult, so understand learning differences (and care). I recently started Quickthorn Books to showcase more makers. I run workshops in darning, crochet, knitting, and, most recently, making rag rugs. I’m proud to be a trustee of Heritage Crafts, and I can usually be found knitting in the corner.
Those of us who knit know that it’s good for us, helping to keep us calm, moderate our heart rate, and more. Rachael explores the therapeutic nature of making in her own idiosyncratic way.
I love Rachael’s voice when she writes, enabling her to be profound while deeply down to earth. This is the only book by her that I haven’t edited myself, so was compelled to read it anyway.
Anyone can pick up a pair of needles and a ball of yarn. And everyone can be mindful. Mindfulness in Knitting casts fresh light on this renowned calming craft, and reveals how the act of "knit and purl" can be the epitome of conscious living. Ethical textile artist Rachael Matthews unpicks the threads of this popular pastime to explore how knitting connects us to each other and to the world around us. Through personal anecdote and expert insight, she unravels the true value of what it means to craft, its therapeutic benefits, and the joys of mindful making.
I grew up ignorant of reality: of my/our history, of the place I grew up in, of the social-ecological reality of the planet. I swallowed “the red pill” in my youth and awakened to a combination of wonder and horror, wonder at the beauty of the ecosphere and of humanity and horror at what is being done to it, to us, by us. In response, I started a garden, got involved in food system change, and became a journalist and author writing on social-ecological issues. My commitment to change intensified when I became a father and again when I became a grandfather.
This book scared the hell out of me and, at the same time—because the author offers credible solutions—gave me hope. In all his books, Homer-Dixon does something I can’t get enough of: he presents unfamiliar, often surprising facts about reality in the context of stories, especially stories about the people that uncover them.
The accumulated information and stories reveal a truth, in this case, that human ingenuity, the force that built civilization, may no longer be sufficient to get us out of the mess of problems we have created through its application. Homer-Dixon transformed my writing style.
Despite all of society’s advances, our problems proliferate. Wars abound, environmental degradation accelerates, economies topple overnight, and pandemics such as AIDS and tuberculosis continue to spread. The Internet and other media help to disseminate knowledge, but they’ve also created an “info-glut” and left us too little time to process it. What’s more, advances in technology have made the world so bewilderingly fast-paced and complex that fewer people are able even to grasp the problems, let alone generate solutions. That space between the problems that arise and our ability to solve them is “the ingenuity gap,” and as we careen towards…
I am a historian based in England, raised in Texas. While undertaking a summertime spoken Latin course at the Vatican in 2001 I found myself in the midst of Italian protests against that year’s G8 summit in Genoa. The strength of the anti-globalization movement, and the violent response from the Carabinieri, sparked an early interest in the historical controversies surrounding globalization and US foreign policy. Ten years later, I had a PhD in History from the University of Texas at Austin and the first draft of what would become my book,The “Conspiracy” of Free Trade.
Where to begin. Hoganson’s first book had already transformed our understanding about why the US acquired a colonial empire in 1898 through the politics of gender.
In Consumers’ Imperium she once again flips the script by investigating the domestic side of the Gilded Age capitalist empire. In doing so, wealthy white women are recast as power brokers of American globalization and imperialism through their purchasing habits, exhibitions, and armchair travel clubs.
Histories of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era tend to characterize the United States as an expansionist nation bent on Americanizing the world without being transformed itself. In ""Consumers' Imperium"", Kristin Hoganson reveals the other half of the story, demonstrating that the years between the Civil War and World War I were marked by heightened consumption of imports and strenuous efforts to appear cosmopolitan. Hoganson finds evidence of international connections in quintessentially domestic places - American households. She shows that well-to-do white women in this era expressed intense interest in other cultures through imported household objects, fashion, cooking, entertaining, armchair…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
Driving cars through Europe and the Sahara Desert to sell them in Niger and exploring China and Russia on the Trans-Siberia Express (1992) as a student, I quickly realised that what we think we know about the world is very superficial, cliché, and stereotype. This made me embark on a PhD supervised by Erasmus University Rotterdam professor Frank M. Go (may he rest in peace), to whom I am forever grateful for suggesting the classic literature on this page. Now I advise governments, I am founding chairman of the International Place Branding Association, co-editor of the journal of Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, and a passionate visiting scholar in Beijing, London, Milan, Rotterdam, and Turin.
My dear colleague Simon Anholt is the founding father of the idea of the city, region or nation as brand.
He created the Anholt Ipsos Nation Brands Index and the Good Country Index; has written extensively on the subject; and has inspired me throughout my career. In his latest book The Good Country Equationhe clearly proves – through the data that he’s collected – that for places to be admired, they have to be admirable.
In other words, places are respected for what they contribute to humanity and the planet, not for their propaganda. This is obviously an important discovery that forces governments and their stakeholders to focus on meaningful strategy, policy and cooperation as opposed to image promotion.
I also enjoyed reading Simon’s book as he shares his personal experiences as a government advisor.
"Not only does Anholt explain the challenges facing the world with unique clarity, he also provides genuinely new, informative, practical, innovative solutions. . . . The book is a must-read for anyone who cares about humanity's shared future." --H. E. Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed (Farmaajo), President of the Federal Republic of Somalia
Why doesn't the world work? Why, despite all the power, technology, money and knowledge that humanity has accumulated, are we are still unable to defeat global challenges like climate change, war, poverty, migration, extremism, and inequality?
Simon Anholt has spent decades helping countries from Austria to Zambia to improve…
Ian Worthington, FSA, FRHistS, is a Professor of Ancient History at Macquarie University, and has written and edited 21 books and over 100 articles on Greek history, oratory, and epigraphy. He also has a Great Courses DVD and CD course titled The Long Shadow of the Ancient Greek World. Away from academic work, he is addicted to reality TV and is an unpaid taxi driver for his two children.
Rome appropriated many aspects of Athenian (and Greek) culture for its political and cultural needs – so much so that the poet Horace spoke of ‘captured Greece capturing the rude conqueror’. This book discusses the ‘Romanization’ of Greece and the impact that Greek culture or Hellenism had on the Romans, and by extension, how the Romans (or at least educated ones) came to view the Greeks. In this cultural interaction, Athens played a key role, as the author shows. This book is an important balance to the ‘usual’ political and military approach to the period, and shows the importance of Athens beyond the terminating Hellenistic era date of 30 BC.
This book examines the impact of the Roman cultural revolution under Augustus on the Roman province of Greece. It argues that the transformation of Roman Greece into a classicizing 'museum' was a specific response of the provincial Greek elites to the cultural politics of the Roman imperial monarchy. Against a background of Roman debates about Greek culture and Roman decadence, Augustus promoted the ideal of a Roman debt to a 'classical' Greece rooted in Europe and morally opposed to a stereotyped Asia. In Greece the regime signalled its admiration for Athens, Sparta, Olympia and Plataea as symbols of these past…
I’m a writer addicted to reading and writing about spunky female characters of all ages. Even though I’m an introvert (who’s no stranger to depression and anxiety), when I have a goal that I’m really passionate about, no matter how hard or how long it takes, I’m stubbornly persistent to make it happen. I believe that books, especially those from my childhood like Ramona Quimby, helped foster this trait. Spunky characters taught me that it’s okay to feel, express, and learn from my emotions, that no matter what life throws at us we can survive it, and to follow your own path with courage and determination.
The title alone intrigued me. Once I learned the premise of this middle-grade novel, I was hooked: a group of students supporting one another through the ups and downs of navigating their periods is shut down by the school administration after receiving complaints.
As the investigative reporter of her middle school’s newspaper, Riley’s no stranger at going the distance to uncover a story. Using her fact-finding skills, Riley hunts for the truth on who put an end to their club and why. Filled with humor and heart, this book had me up all night to finish in one sitting, cheering Riley and her friends on as they fight to save their club and stand up for their rights.
A tween reporter discovers an important and beloved club at school is being shut down-and uses the power of the pen to try and activate some much-needed social change in this period-positive and empowering middle grade novel about the importance of standing up for what you believe in.
Riley Dunne loves being a member of the Red Club. It's more than a group of girls supporting each other through Aunt Flo's ups and downs; it's a Hawking Middle School tradition. The club's secret locker has an emergency stash of supplies, and the girls are always willing to lend an ear,…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
The physical practice of yoga transformed my relationship to my body, but the philosophy of yoga changed my life. When I began to study the Sutras, my mind became calmer; I had a greater capacity to listen and be patient in my relationships, and my quality of life improved. As I studied philosophy more, my perspective shifted from lack and blame to abundance and self-awareness. Knowing there is more to yoga than just the physical practice, I find it important to honor the tradition the way it was intended: as a whole system for the mind, body, and spirit to reduce the suffering of all beings.
Michelle Cassandra Johnson knows yoga is both a personal practice to ease suffering and one that calls on us to lessen the suffering of others. She connects the philosophy to social justice so well, it’s as though she sat alongside the original scholars of the Sutras. Her book is packed with quiet wisdom, prompts, meditations, reflection, and so much heart. It’s both a workbook and a philosophy text, a resource, and an awakening. If you can study the book with her, do. She has many online offerings. Her presence is comforting, affirming, bold, and her book reflects these qualities.
THIS IS THE 2nd and LATEST EDITION OF SKILL IN ACTION. Transform your yoga practice into a force for creating social change with this concise, eloquent guide to social justice tools and skills.
Skill in Action asks you to explore the deeply transformational practice of yoga as a way to become an agent of social change and work toward a just world. Through yoga practices and philosophy, this book explores liberation for ourselves and others, while asking us to engage in our own agency--whether that manifests as activism, volunteer work, or changing our relationships with others and ourselves. To provide…
