Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America From a Culture or Contempt, by Arthur Brooks

This is THE book that really helped me better understand how our discourse has spiraled out of control. Brooks boils it down to contempt, created by a “Monetized Outraged Industrial Comples,” (youtube, facebook, tiktok, etc.). He shares many example of how to understand how others may come to their views, how to listen and how to bridge the divide.

I Never Thought of it That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times. by Monica Guzman

Recommended by one of our workshop participants, as a companion to Brooks’ book, I am excited to read this and pull from it for the Fall Workshops!

The War For Kindness: Building Empathy In A Fractured World, by Jamil Zaki

This landmark book gives us a revolutionary perspective: Empathy can be developed, and when it is, people, relationships, organizations, and cultures are changed.” - Carol Dweck, author of Mindset

This book, as well, is the perfect companion to Brooks’ book above!

Giving Up Is Unforgiveable by Joyce Vance

I have had the SLCL pre-order copies of this book for one of our “book talks.” It will be available Oct. 21st. I have the discussion slated for November.

For the past two years, Joyce Vance has signed off posts on her chart-topping Substack, Civil Discourse, with these four words. In that time, she’s guided readers through a continued erosion of democratic norms, the unprecedented felony conviction of an ex-president, and the approaching specter of a second Trump administration. Now that it’s upon us, Vance helps us understand how to avoid burnout and despair and exercise the democratic muscles we need to save the Republic.

Giving Up Is Unforgivable is a clarion call to action—putting our current crisis in historical context and sketching out a vision for where we go next. Vance’s message is hopeful at its heart, even as it acknowledges the daunting challenges that lie ahead. She is the constitutional law professor you never knew you needed, explaining the legal context, the political history, and the practical reasons that the rule of law still matters, while also empowering you to do something—from the small (that conversation you’ve been meaning to have with your uncle or volunteering for your favorite political cause) to the big (starting a grassroots movement or running for political office).

Consider this the birth of a countermovement to Project 2025, a rallying cry for citizen engagement to counter the second Trump administration and save American democracy.

Democracy Awakening, by Heather Cox Richardson

Richardson, known for her Letters from an American podcast and on Substack, connects the pieces from American History, Administrations, Civil Rights Struggles, the Courts and all that has come to bring us to the point we are today, teetering on the brink of Authoritarian takeover. We are like the frog in a pot that is coming to a slow boil, and now it is the perfect storm of movements, coalescing. She also has ideas for “Reclaiming America.” We need to know the past so we can solve for the present and the future.

On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From the Twentieth Century, by Timothy Synder

This pocket size book may be familiar if you saw John Lithgow read it on youtube. As the saying goes, “Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it!”

The Bill of Obligations: The Ten Habits of Good Citizens, by Richard Haass

We have our Bill of Rights, but what about the obligations of the citizenry that go with it? As Jon Meacham says - “A vital work for a decisive time.” Comes with a reading discussion group guide at the end. Perhaps one could host one’s own and invite friends!

The Echo Machine: How Right-Wing Extremism Created a Post-Truth America, by David Pakman

In this book, Pakman, discusses how the media has manipulated and corrupted our society. He reinforces the need for Critical Reason and Media Literacy.

Abundance, by Ezra Klein

This book has been getting rave reviews, so new I haven’t gotten to it , yet, but I think it would be a great book talk! Klein says, “This book is dedicated to a simple idea: To have the future we want, we need to build and invent more of what we need.” He examines how the overabundance of the 20th century, the fights between the Left and the Right, an overwhelming consumer goods, has distracted us from a scarcity of homes and energy and infrastructure and scientific breakthroughs.

Klein focuses on the building blocks of the future (Housing, Transportation, Energy and Health).

As Naomi Klein states, “If we want to save Democracy, we need to focus on the future we want.”

It Can’t Happen Here, by Sinclair Lewis

Originally printed in 1935, this book stands even today, as one of the “most important books ever produced in this country.” - The New Yorker. It’s happening.

Hope: The Autobiography, Pope Francis

With his recent passing, I find this book even more compelling to read as we lose a voice for the most vulnerable among us. Inspirational, as well, and can be used as a bridge to talk within the divide of Christianity which has strayed so far from its gospel.

The Penguin Guide to the United States Constitution: A Fully Annotated Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution and Amendents, and Selections from the Federalist Papers, by Richard Beeman

Great reference companion to our Founding Documents. Easy to engage with what is happening in this moment, as it applies to the individual documents, for oneself or in conversation.

Have a book you would like to recommend to the group? Write it up and I’ll check it out!