joy is the mostly invisible, the underground union between us, you and me … Ross Gay

Read together - the seasonal JOY book club

  • Winter '25 Robert MacFarlane's Underland

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    In Underland, Robert Macfarlane delivers an epic exploration of the Earth’s underworlds as they exist in myth, literature, memory, and the land itself. Traveling through the dizzying expanse of geologic time—from prehistoric art in Norwegian sea caves, to the blue depths of the Greenland ice cap, to a deep-sunk "hiding place" where nuclear waste will be stored for 100,000 years to come—Underland takes us on an extraordinary journey into our relationship with darkness, burial, and what lies beneath the surface of both place and mind.

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    Fall '24 - Lama Rod Owens' The New Saints

    DescriptionSaints, spiritual warriors, Bodhisattvas, tzaddik—no matter how they are named in a given tradition, they all share a profound wish to free others from suffering. Saints are not unattainable beings of stained glass or carved stone. “Saints are ordinary and human, doing things any person can learn to do,” teaches Lama Rod Owens. “Our era calls for saints who are from this time and place, who speak the language of this moment, and who integrate both social and spiritual liberation. I believe we all can and must become New Saints.” goes here

  • Summer '24 - Solnit's A PARADISE BUILT IN HELL

    “Everyone feels alone in a crisis . . . It needn’t be that way. In fact, as the incomparable Rebecca Solnit has shown throughout her long, meandering, brilliant career, but especially in [this book], it must not be. A Paradise Built in Hell is an eye-opening account of how much hope and solidarity emerges in the face of sudden disaster . . . [These lessons] offer deep comfort now, as antidotes not just to feelings of helplessness but loneliness.” - David Wallis Wells - New York Magazine

  • Spring '24 - Gay's INCITING JOY

    “Inciting Joy is a book that will break your heart. Ross Gay will break your heart. He will break it and advocate for breaking it over and over. Why? So we can choose our life, our survival, our full humanity. Inciting Joy is brilliant because it’s not just a book; it’s proof that the way we carve out room for joy is by acknowledging our constant teacher: sorrow.”- Ada Limon

  • Winter '24 - ODEll's How to do Nothing

    “She struck a hopeful nerve of possibility that I hadn’t felt in a long time.”—Jia Tolentino, THE NEW YORKER