Nonfiction November: Week 4 (11/20-11/24) Worldview Shapers

Week 4 (11/20-11/24) Worldview Shapers: One of the greatest things about reading nonfiction is learning all kinds of things about our world which you never would have known without it. There’s the intriguing, the beautiful, the appalling, and the profound. What nonfiction book or books have impacted the way you see the world in a powerful way? Is there one book that made you rethink everything? Do you think there is a book that should be required reading for everyone? (Rebekah of She Seeks Nonfiction) 

I Never Thought of It That Way by Monica Guzmán

I Think You're Wrong, But I'm Listening by Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers

Love Your Enemies: How Decent People Can Save America from the Culture of Contempt 

by Arthur C. Brooks

Alienated America: Why Some Places Thrive While Others Collapse by Timothy P. Carney

Civility: Manners, Morals, and the Etiquette of Democracy by Stephen L. Carter

Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community by Robert D. Putnam

I've been dismayed about the state of community and civil discourse in America for many years. 

It was Stephen L. Carter's Civility that first set me thinking about the very uncivil ways citizens 

in America talk to each other. Bowling Alone by Robert D. Putnam shared statistics that revealed the

frayed and battered state of the American community. I read both of these twenty years ago.

Love Your Enemies and Alienated America are books I ran across about four years ago, and 

both of these alerted me to the ways in which our community has become even weaker 

and our civil discourse has become even more strident. 

In the last two years, I've focused on learning ways to talk with those I disagree with, and, to help

me, I've read I Think You're Wrong, But I'm Listening and I Never Thought of It That Way.

I welcome any other book recommendations you might share with me.