Friends and Purpose: Stories from sofas on streets and some confounding ideas for tough times

by Maff Potts, Victoria Herriman (illustrator)

236 pages, Paperback

Published February 6, 2025

Reviews

[Gracie! · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is the reason I love public libraries. I often stick to a to-read list but I stumbled upon this book in my local public library. This book has something to offer for everyone - you, me, organisations, people in public facing-roles, students, etc. The narrators writing style is so likeable because he writes like a human. He details the relatable experiences, or even not relatable experiences, other humans have shared with him on his quest to bring people together using public living rooms. But he does this by talking like a relateable human, about relatable human struggles. Sometimes I disagreed with him, even frowned a bit, but disagreement is important (as supported at the end of this book). This book both challenged and inspired me which is the entire reason I read.

[Lisa K · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maff is a wealth of raw talent and he shares his insights from more than two decades of work on the streets with a variety of folks facing a variety of challenges. His conclusion? We need each other. So, he created a movement called the Assocation of Camerados where folks can sit in public living rooms with the goal of connection and decidedly not fixing each other.

Love the book.

Love the message.

I missing piece in a world full of folks who swoop in with all the answers and fixes before being curious about the people they claim to desire to help.