Readings on War, Happiness, and Cultural Amnesia | Sojourners

Readings on War, Happiness, and Cultural Amnesia

Need a good book? Check out some of these titles:

War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning, by Chris Hedges. Very helpful to my effort to understand what draws people to street life.

Social Intelligence, by Daniel Goleman. Fascinating blend of physical and social science; validates my conviction that the only things that really matter are loving relationships.

Walkin' the Dog, by Walter Mosley. Mosley's books take me to places in my own neighborhood where I can never go, and let me sneak inside people I need to know.

Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, by Thomas E. Ricks. I knew it was bad, but it was (and is) much, much worse than that.

Cultural Amnesia: Notes in the Margin of My Time, by Clive James. Apparently James has invented his own literary genre, which I love reading even when I don't fully understand it.

Gang Leader for a Day: A Rogue Sociologist Takes to the Streets, by Sudhir Venkatesh. Made me wonder how deep I could go with folks on the block if they didn't know I was working for Love.

The Film Club: A True Story of a Father and a Son, by David Gilmour. A gem that added plenty of movies to my Netflix queue and a few choice topics to my ongoing conversation with my teenage son.

The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl, by Timothy Egan. This story of the Dust Bowl is eerily similar to what is happening today on a global scale.

Stumbling on Happiness, by Daniel Gilbert. A delightful explanation of why we so often fail to know what will make us happy in the future.

Bart CampoloBart Campolo is a veteran urban minister and activist who speaks, writes, and blogs about grace, faith, loving relationships, and social justice. Bart is the leader of The Walnut Hills Fellowship in inner-city Cincinnati. He is also founder of Mission Year, which recruits committed young adults to live and work among the poor in inner-city neighborhoods across the U.S., and executive director of EAPE, which develops and supports innovative, cost-effective mission projects around the world.

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