more please. I am so pleased to hear your views.

I wish your books be taught in all schools and more book clubs. I saw you last year a wimbeldon book fest and it was such a delight to see so many people reading and loving your work.

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A pragmatic heart sutra for living today

Shafak is able to take a feeling and idea and turn it into the story of her today, which influences a sense of what our tomorrow's might feel like. Hinging weight onto the notion that we as individuals and collectives are nothing without our voices and visibility, she cites thinkers, authors, philosophers and poets who aid to the deep craving of belonging and sense of self we are currently losing. She is speaking on behalf of so many of us who are sensitive enough to take our periphery surroundings on, and does it with poetic aptitude. My biggest takeaway from this was the reminder that loneliness is not an insular experience and that we must look outwards to every other person, entity and energy, to connect and share with - because our stories will bring us into recovery.

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A lesson in being human

I believe the book offers good insight on how to navigate this age of division in which we currently are and where society is becoming increasingly polarized, complex, and fragmented.
The writer, Elif, suggests that one of the ways to combat division is by embracing our common humanity and recognizing our shared experiences and struggles. She also highlights the importance of empathy and understanding in building bridges across divides.
Overall, the book captures valuable perspectives on navigating a complex and challenging world. It brings awareness on how diverse and multilateral a post-pandemic society can be and how all of us can contribute instead of stepping aside.

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Profound and insightful reflections

A must read. Short and concise. Epic Shafak summarises thoughts on humanity, anger, consciousness and more. I have a hard copy and audible copy.

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To be read by as many as possible ....

An excellent, interesting and necessary book; made even more poignant being read by the author.

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A must read for the entire globe

Beautiful and elegantly written. A reminder during challenging times not to spiral in negativity and anger. Persuasive and compelling in argument.

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How Do We Find A New Healthy Sanity

Great thought that makes me think we need to understand how the silencing of the insight that dialectical relationships have brought needs new protaganists who care about the post war/post colonial ground and invest it with people, lives, stories connected to new kinds of jobs, housing health, education.

It made me think that for the privileged an underclass has an inevitability that’s feudal -a post modern feudalism of rentier capitalism
agency employment that’s become the template for the life and health of everyone: ie just thank your lucky stars you’re a professional person in an institution- but the problem is that these organisations have historically discriminated against representation.

There’s a structured confusion in organisations and institutions that finds it threatening to look at what’s there locally to connect the local story with the regional, national and international.

When you think about how that came to be Elif Shafak is right we suppressed and diverted diversity and aspiration for representation after the wars and led diversity into ethno centrism so all the learning about humanity and diversities that was gained through traveling in the services, fighting, understanding how peace was gained as a soldier, refugee, prisoner of war, migrant was silenced, hidden, pushed up the still militarily hierarchical supply chain for a few word answer rather than an ethical look at the ongoing value of all lives across generations not just the families of the privileged who though approved to be part of the reconstruction economy must have, like the military themselves, have felt the ambivalence of a the fake offer, even seventy years ago.

The military were given authority in all economies to rebuild and many local economies were seen by the original planners as ways of diverting solidarities, collectivities that weren’t taken as seriously as they should have been, so that in Britain after the Second World War you’d have the old colonial control of what were seen as working class jobs, planning for mass jobs, council estates but as a second class offer that had no future where the tools of control and exploitation were the same kinds of tools used in the empire used by the same kinds of people with the same kinds of ambivalent mindsets that wanted control and used ‘hire purchase’ and then ‘credit’ in expensive but poor quality furniture and in their catalogue companies where, for example, previously strong labour voters were recruited to surveil their neighbours in the gifting of catalogue credit. When you think about how catalogue credit made these ‘companies’ very wealthy it’s especially interesting when you realise how the people who provided the wealth to make the hire purchase furniture companies wealthy, the catalogue companies wealthy were excluded from the benefits of credit in the way the architecture of the new business information credit systems was constructed. This was how/why an underclass was delivered you’d put anyone who was different into a space of exclusion.

The companies in Nottingham where this evolved were called The Old Colonial Furniture company, which took the name (and was successfully sued by a ‘real’ company) Cavendish Woodhouse, the profits from Cavendish Woodhouse created the financial seeds for catalogue companies Great Universal Stores and Argos and the profits from these and the successful intention in getting off scot free in exploiting the ‘working class’ were used to create a powerful business tool CCN systems which operated as a powerful gatekeeper of occupation, privilege and opportunity and evolved into Experian that was used during the privatisation period of the seventies, eighties and nineties onward to structure and create a kind of nightmarish metonymy in data - like Marx turned Hegel on his head, the processes that created the Experian Mosaic now used ( mainly unwittingly) in health, education, planning, local authorities structure segregation (and privilege) automatically now by algorhythm- so why would a privileged white young male give up what he thinks is his (earnt) privilege - if you get brownie points just for breathing how can we just say ‘you don’t deserve that?’ We do live/accept structured confusion and we need a local economy where beautiful streets, pavements, shop signs diverse kinds of jobs, education, training should be more of a shared goal and we do need to know what kinds of businesses/aspirations histories are on our doorsteps.

In Nottingham we have over six hundred agencies positioned around us to steer young people who find education/apprenticeships hard into warehouse employment with all its drink, drug gambling distractions. Middle class young people can survive but even when they’re in college there’s the same gang labour approach to literacy that comes out of the kind of misunderstanding of what work is inside the DWP. We need to create capacity for innovation and let bureaucracies make themselves redundant but the problem is that when the government cuts the bureaucracy ( and then creates jobs where there’s a real need) these jobs are mopped up either by civil servants who are at risk of listing their job, like the 7,500 job Coach jobs) or are mopped up by the superproviders like Serco who run leisure centers and prisons and used the Covid budgets to redeploy furloughed staff who act out the fantasy of being part of a ‘military led’ process of testing while not being effectively trained/prepared to do the job and local people are treated as supplementary agency staff.
We need to move beyond this military approach that isn’t at all a military approach but is a dinosaur legacy of all the petrified hopes fears and aspirations of the Second World War period and begin to be able to use our eyes, ears, bodies and abilities to create a much better world for all.

I work in marketing with micro businesses and blog to encourage ideas, talent, regeneration:
signsofanopencity:

https://opencitydesign.com

It’s important that we recognise that in 1972 companies like Schreiber furniture we’re planning for the next hundred years- they had a great product and a turnover of £72 million. Now we have ‘savvy’ maths teachers watching their stocks and shares in classrooms that have been completely undermined by too much compliance and bureaucracy. I think we should cut bureaucracy but we need to grow society, people and aspiration throughout the life cycle! X

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Love her novels and this was brilliant

I love this; the insights of a well travelled and open mind! I was so pleased she read it herself too. I’m going to be using this as a stimulus with international students and I think I will have more repeat listens in the future!

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interesting story about division

The story is kind of difficult to follow at first but once you get into it it's a very good listen.

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Interesting author, full stop.

Why it's hard to stay sane in an age of division would be more accurate

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