Book of Hope: Jane Goodall

Recently, a childhood friend and neighbor reached across cyberspace to reconnect with me. She is older than me and was friends with one of my brothers (Stewart M. Green), who sadly passed away last June, and she sent me condolences over Facebook and voila, a new old friend.

I had posted a few weeks ago about feeling such despair over the state of our country and our slip-sliding into the 19th century, with all its racism, sexism, jingoism, etc. She recommended The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times, which is a series of conversations between Jane Goodall and Douglas Abrams. I promptly got on the wait list for an audio copy from my library and spent last week listening to it.

I am happy to report that listening to Jane talk about her life and work and why, despite the state of the world when the book was written (before and during the COVID-19 pandemic), she remains hopeful for the future of our species and our planet did, in fact, help me to feel more hopeful myself. I am naturally a glass half-full person, but sometimes it's hard to tell where optimism ends and naivety begins.

Here are excerpts from the GoodReads blurb:

Jane focuses on her “Four Reasons for Hope”: The Amazing Human Intellect, The Resilience of Nature, The Power of Young People, and The Indomitable Human Spirit.

Told through stories from a remarkable career and fascinating research, The Book of Hope touches on vital questions including: How do we stay hopeful when everything seems hopeless? How do we cultivate hope in our children? 

Jane tells the story of how she became a messenger of hope: from living through World War II, to her years in Gombe, to realizing she had to leave the forest to travel the world in her role as an advocate for environmental justice. She details the forces that shaped her hopeful worldview, her thoughts on her past, and her revelations about her next--and perhaps final--adventure.

Goodall says that in her lectures she focuses on telling stories instead of listing facts because people can relate to stories, making the message they deliver more memorable and hence more powerful.

This is probably why I love fiction so much. While non-fiction books have a place on my library shelf and in my reading life, the stories in the novels I have read and reread and reread have shaped me so much.

I would definitely recommend this book whether you are in need of an injection of hope or not. Goodall has lived a remarkable life worth reading about, and she continues to preach a message worth listening to and heeding.