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I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World
Win a free print copy of this book!
13 days and 10:49:48
25 copies available
U.S. only
A guide to finding joy, beauty, and meaning when the world is falling apart, from New York Times bestselling author Sarah Wilson.
What if collapse isn’t the end, but the beginning of a beautiful new way of living?
We are already living through collapse. Climate extremes, political turmoil, and fractured communities are no longer on the horizon – they are here now. For decades we held on to the hope that everything would turn out fine; but our deadlines have passed, tipping points are unfolding, and clinging to hope can deepen our confusion and despair.
However, with the loss of hope comes relief. Relief that we can stop pretending, release the exhausting effort to believe against evidence, and finally acknowledge our communal fear as we watch our world changing irreparably.
Instead of falling into panic and disillusionment, Sarah shows us how to embrace this era with presence, courage, and awe. Drawing on years of research and over 200 interviews with philosophers, scientists, spiritual leaders, and everyday seekers, she weaves hard truths with soulful practices to help us rise above fear and use our energy to reconnect with what matters most.
Readers will discover how
Confront collapse with honesty while cultivating resilience and creativityFind beauty, joy, and connection in chaosReclaim agency through radical simplicity, community, and compassion
Sarah invites readers into a post-hope consciousness rooted not in denial, but in meaning. I Eat the Stars is a vital companion for navigating the times we live in—and for living fully, fiercely, and beautifully despite them.
What if collapse isn’t the end, but the beginning of a beautiful new way of living?
We are already living through collapse. Climate extremes, political turmoil, and fractured communities are no longer on the horizon – they are here now. For decades we held on to the hope that everything would turn out fine; but our deadlines have passed, tipping points are unfolding, and clinging to hope can deepen our confusion and despair.
However, with the loss of hope comes relief. Relief that we can stop pretending, release the exhausting effort to believe against evidence, and finally acknowledge our communal fear as we watch our world changing irreparably.
Instead of falling into panic and disillusionment, Sarah shows us how to embrace this era with presence, courage, and awe. Drawing on years of research and over 200 interviews with philosophers, scientists, spiritual leaders, and everyday seekers, she weaves hard truths with soulful practices to help us rise above fear and use our energy to reconnect with what matters most.
Readers will discover how
Confront collapse with honesty while cultivating resilience and creativityFind beauty, joy, and connection in chaosReclaim agency through radical simplicity, community, and compassion
Sarah invites readers into a post-hope consciousness rooted not in denial, but in meaning. I Eat the Stars is a vital companion for navigating the times we live in—and for living fully, fiercely, and beautifully despite them.
Kindle Edition
Published June 16, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 96 reviews
August 7, 2026
I got half way and I cannot justify going any further.
2.5 stars only because it allowed me to clarify my own position.
2.5 stars only because it allowed me to clarify my own position.
June 7, 2026
“The Titanic is going down and we’re debating the right way to fold a deck chair”
I can’t believe a non-fiction book is my first five-star review of the year! Since learning about collapse theory, it’s been all I can think about and now I see examples of it every day; I just didn’t have a word for it before. It is at once terrifying and validating.
Reading this was hard work (intellectually, emotionally, spiritually) and so it felt difficult to pick up and yet impossible to put down. It’s completely altered how I view the world and confronted my sense of certainty about our future. But ultimately it’s about returning to what it really means to be human.
I think you have to be ready for this one, but when you are, do it.
I can’t believe a non-fiction book is my first five-star review of the year! Since learning about collapse theory, it’s been all I can think about and now I see examples of it every day; I just didn’t have a word for it before. It is at once terrifying and validating.
Reading this was hard work (intellectually, emotionally, spiritually) and so it felt difficult to pick up and yet impossible to put down. It’s completely altered how I view the world and confronted my sense of certainty about our future. But ultimately it’s about returning to what it really means to be human.
I think you have to be ready for this one, but when you are, do it.
June 17, 2026
Sarah Wilson has written a highly accessible and eminently readable book about collapse.
That accessibility is both its greatest strength and its greatest weakness. The book surveys an enormous subject with broad strokes, sacrificing depth for breadth, and rarely pauses to interrogate its own assumptions. It spends little time establishing what "collapse" means in detail, instead somewhat haphazardly running through a scattered, by no means comprehensive list of contributing causes. Admittedly, doing so would leave little room for anything else, as the subject is immense and our world both vast and impossibly complex.
But rigorous analysis was never really the point. Originally written as a Substack serialisation, the book retains the feeling of a personal journal: reflective, conversational, emotional, and episodic rather than methodical or scholarly.
So if you're looking for detailed science on the drivers of collapse, philosophical explorations of how to maintain democracy in a collapsing world, serious engagement with ethical concerns such as whether to have children in an age of ecological overshoot (let alone high-consuming first-world ones!) or discussions on whether or How To Blow Up a Pipeline, this is not that book. Fortunately, books that tackle those questions in depth already exist.
If, however, you're looking for companionship in confronting collapse, it may be exactly what the doctor ordered.
Becoming collapse-aware can feel like tumbling down the proverbial rabbit hole into an abyss, made worse by the merciless levels of ostracism one invariably encounters. In that sense, Wilson's book succeeds less as an original intellectual contribution than as an act of solidarity, as Wilson’s vulnerable sharing of her personal journey reassures readers that they are not alone.
The structure reflects this purpose. Rather than presenting a tightly argued thesis, it resembles a stream of consciousness: the whirlwind of fear, grief, anger, confusion, and searching for meaning that accompanies the plunge into the abyss. She writes about falling into deep despair and its associated liberating, necessary wailing, her dancing to escape paralysing terror, her grappling with fear and loss and grief, but also arrives at some upsides that come with a better grasp of a terrifying reality, such as the clearsightedness that comes with the relinquishing of living a lie based on delusional hope.
Wilson draws on her extensive experience with thinkers and feelers in the collapse space (including her own readers, whose feedback and comments are incorporated in this final version) as a podcast host, journalist, blogger and more to deliver insights and anecdotes from near and far. It touches on ecology, history, sociology, psychology, neuroscience, game theory, and numerous adjacent disciplines, but almost always in passing. Readers hoping for sustained engagement with any of these topics may find themselves frustrated by how quickly the discussion moves on.
Paradoxically, that light touch is precisely what gives the book its appeal. Its conversational style lowers the barrier to entry for readers who are only beginning to engage with collapse, making the grim subject feel approachable rather than overwhelming.
Throughout, Wilson scatters facts and observations without developing them into sustained arguments. She doesn’t strain the Overton window and offers few genuinely novel insights. Readers already immersed in collapse literature are unlikely to encounter ideas they haven't seen before.
Yet that may miss the point. The book's principal contribution is not originality but accessibility. Its value lies in translating an overwhelming body of ideas into an emotionally resonant narrative that many readers will recognise in themselves, even if it does ultimately leave them hanging. But to that, I would just say: of course it does, because the reality of collapse is surreal.
Ultimately, the book is about finding a way to be in a world one knows is ending, or at the very least about to go through foundational changes the likes of which we can hardly imagine.
I think it is a valuable contribution to collapse literature that delivers what it promises and helps build bridges, bringing the topic closer to the mainstream. I would recommend it to readers looking for a thoughtful companion while coming to terms with collapse.
That accessibility is both its greatest strength and its greatest weakness. The book surveys an enormous subject with broad strokes, sacrificing depth for breadth, and rarely pauses to interrogate its own assumptions. It spends little time establishing what "collapse" means in detail, instead somewhat haphazardly running through a scattered, by no means comprehensive list of contributing causes. Admittedly, doing so would leave little room for anything else, as the subject is immense and our world both vast and impossibly complex.
But rigorous analysis was never really the point. Originally written as a Substack serialisation, the book retains the feeling of a personal journal: reflective, conversational, emotional, and episodic rather than methodical or scholarly.
So if you're looking for detailed science on the drivers of collapse, philosophical explorations of how to maintain democracy in a collapsing world, serious engagement with ethical concerns such as whether to have children in an age of ecological overshoot (let alone high-consuming first-world ones!) or discussions on whether or How To Blow Up a Pipeline, this is not that book. Fortunately, books that tackle those questions in depth already exist.
If, however, you're looking for companionship in confronting collapse, it may be exactly what the doctor ordered.
Becoming collapse-aware can feel like tumbling down the proverbial rabbit hole into an abyss, made worse by the merciless levels of ostracism one invariably encounters. In that sense, Wilson's book succeeds less as an original intellectual contribution than as an act of solidarity, as Wilson’s vulnerable sharing of her personal journey reassures readers that they are not alone.
The structure reflects this purpose. Rather than presenting a tightly argued thesis, it resembles a stream of consciousness: the whirlwind of fear, grief, anger, confusion, and searching for meaning that accompanies the plunge into the abyss. She writes about falling into deep despair and its associated liberating, necessary wailing, her dancing to escape paralysing terror, her grappling with fear and loss and grief, but also arrives at some upsides that come with a better grasp of a terrifying reality, such as the clearsightedness that comes with the relinquishing of living a lie based on delusional hope.
Wilson draws on her extensive experience with thinkers and feelers in the collapse space (including her own readers, whose feedback and comments are incorporated in this final version) as a podcast host, journalist, blogger and more to deliver insights and anecdotes from near and far. It touches on ecology, history, sociology, psychology, neuroscience, game theory, and numerous adjacent disciplines, but almost always in passing. Readers hoping for sustained engagement with any of these topics may find themselves frustrated by how quickly the discussion moves on.
Paradoxically, that light touch is precisely what gives the book its appeal. Its conversational style lowers the barrier to entry for readers who are only beginning to engage with collapse, making the grim subject feel approachable rather than overwhelming.
Throughout, Wilson scatters facts and observations without developing them into sustained arguments. She doesn’t strain the Overton window and offers few genuinely novel insights. Readers already immersed in collapse literature are unlikely to encounter ideas they haven't seen before.
Yet that may miss the point. The book's principal contribution is not originality but accessibility. Its value lies in translating an overwhelming body of ideas into an emotionally resonant narrative that many readers will recognise in themselves, even if it does ultimately leave them hanging. But to that, I would just say: of course it does, because the reality of collapse is surreal.
Ultimately, the book is about finding a way to be in a world one knows is ending, or at the very least about to go through foundational changes the likes of which we can hardly imagine.
I think it is a valuable contribution to collapse literature that delivers what it promises and helps build bridges, bringing the topic closer to the mainstream. I would recommend it to readers looking for a thoughtful companion while coming to terms with collapse.
June 29, 2026
My, my. Chicken Little, the sky is falling.
While I happen to agree with a lot of what the author discusses about climate and systems collapse, this book is a mess. I don’t know what I was expecting, but what I got was existential panic for the first part of the book. An entire chapter on losing “hopium.” I swear to God. 😒
Then the remainder of the book is about her going on vision quests and, in fact, not giving up “hopium.”
When, somewhere in the middle, after my fear center was shut down from overuse, she started mentioning the myth of calories in and calories out, alarm bells started ringing. That’s when I looked up her credentials, and what do you know? She holds an online nutrition credential and wrote a book about sugar addiction. I swear to the Lord, I just cannot.
But I stuck with it because I wanted to see how she would land the plane. All of the pilfered quotes she uses to suit her narrative are very effective if you’re not paying attention. I genuinely caught myself thinking, this is how people get sucked into cults. I kept waiting for the pitch.
Alas, if you’re well read on any of the topics she discusses, you’ll probably agree these systems are dysfunctional and everything does seem on the verge of, or already in, collapse. But if you’re reading this for any semblance of feeling better or finding peace, you’re barking up the wrong quack tree. 🌬️
While I happen to agree with a lot of what the author discusses about climate and systems collapse, this book is a mess. I don’t know what I was expecting, but what I got was existential panic for the first part of the book. An entire chapter on losing “hopium.” I swear to God. 😒
Then the remainder of the book is about her going on vision quests and, in fact, not giving up “hopium.”
When, somewhere in the middle, after my fear center was shut down from overuse, she started mentioning the myth of calories in and calories out, alarm bells started ringing. That’s when I looked up her credentials, and what do you know? She holds an online nutrition credential and wrote a book about sugar addiction. I swear to the Lord, I just cannot.
But I stuck with it because I wanted to see how she would land the plane. All of the pilfered quotes she uses to suit her narrative are very effective if you’re not paying attention. I genuinely caught myself thinking, this is how people get sucked into cults. I kept waiting for the pitch.
Alas, if you’re well read on any of the topics she discusses, you’ll probably agree these systems are dysfunctional and everything does seem on the verge of, or already in, collapse. But if you’re reading this for any semblance of feeling better or finding peace, you’re barking up the wrong quack tree. 🌬️
July 27, 2026
2 stars = Meh. Just ok.
“Understanding collapse is not for everyone.”
Climate collapse, end stage capitalism, AI, and a rise in fascism that is threatening democracy are all issues I was already aware of, and they do not bring me joy. So I picked this book up hoping it would help to provide a philosophical perspective to lessen the concern over these heavy issues. Ha! This book stressed me the hell out.
“We human beings now have the power to exterminate ourselves; this seems to be the entire sum of our achievement. - James Baldwin”
There is excellent factual information here for those that are uninformed, including very recent events. Unfortunately the title and synopsis are misleading as I experienced a paradoxical effect with a significant increase in anxiety from reading it. The advice offered for the most part had already been implemented in my life, which left me with more negatives than positives from the reading experience.
“We are not the dinosaurs. We are the meteor. We are not only in danger. We are the danger. - António Guterres, secretary-general of the United Nations”
-----
First Sentence: I always feel I need to explain why I write a book.
Favorite Quote: To face death is to learn how to live.
“Understanding collapse is not for everyone.”
Climate collapse, end stage capitalism, AI, and a rise in fascism that is threatening democracy are all issues I was already aware of, and they do not bring me joy. So I picked this book up hoping it would help to provide a philosophical perspective to lessen the concern over these heavy issues. Ha! This book stressed me the hell out.
“We human beings now have the power to exterminate ourselves; this seems to be the entire sum of our achievement. - James Baldwin”
There is excellent factual information here for those that are uninformed, including very recent events. Unfortunately the title and synopsis are misleading as I experienced a paradoxical effect with a significant increase in anxiety from reading it. The advice offered for the most part had already been implemented in my life, which left me with more negatives than positives from the reading experience.
“We are not the dinosaurs. We are the meteor. We are not only in danger. We are the danger. - António Guterres, secretary-general of the United Nations”
-----
First Sentence: I always feel I need to explain why I write a book.
Favorite Quote: To face death is to learn how to live.
July 2, 2026
I began reading I Eat the Stars during a lunch break the other week, and before I knew it, I found myself having a full fledged panic attack. I think it suddenly dawned on me what I was about to read and the realities it would force me to confront. It wasn't easy to pick the book back up again, but I'm so glad I did.
What kept me reading was the thread of hope that quietly glows throughout the path Wilson takes us down. To somehow offer both no hope and every hope in the world at the same time is an art form in itself. There is something profoundly liberating about accepting that there isn't as much we can control or "do" as we once believed. Strangely, that realisation felt like a weight being lifted.
The book invites you to stop striving for impossible certainty and instead simply live life. It sounds absurd when written down, but it struck a deep chord with me. These are thoughts I grapple with daily, and Wilson articulated them in a way that felt both confronting and comforting. A challenging read, but ultimately one I'm very grateful to have experienced.
What kept me reading was the thread of hope that quietly glows throughout the path Wilson takes us down. To somehow offer both no hope and every hope in the world at the same time is an art form in itself. There is something profoundly liberating about accepting that there isn't as much we can control or "do" as we once believed. Strangely, that realisation felt like a weight being lifted.
The book invites you to stop striving for impossible certainty and instead simply live life. It sounds absurd when written down, but it struck a deep chord with me. These are thoughts I grapple with daily, and Wilson articulated them in a way that felt both confronting and comforting. A challenging read, but ultimately one I'm very grateful to have experienced.
July 5, 2026
My brother gave me this book for my recent birthday and said he was looking forward to discussing it with me when I finished it. I was not familiar with this author or her podcasts or prior writings so I found this offering both compelling and at times confusing but very thought provoking overall.
While reading it, I came across an article and interview with her in the Sunday Age that discussed liminality- a section I had just read within the book at that point- and found myself pondering even more deeply.
My brother described this book as like nothing he had ever read and I feel somewhat surprised myself that though it was not an easy read it was one that I wanted to continue to the end and that I will reflect on long after I have turned the final page. Not every book can have that said about it.
While reading it, I came across an article and interview with her in the Sunday Age that discussed liminality- a section I had just read within the book at that point- and found myself pondering even more deeply.
My brother described this book as like nothing he had ever read and I feel somewhat surprised myself that though it was not an easy read it was one that I wanted to continue to the end and that I will reflect on long after I have turned the final page. Not every book can have that said about it.
August 11, 2026
big deep thinking going on here. made me feel like a speck and i liked it.
August 13, 2026
I Eat the Stars is a book by a climate activist. It's too late, she says. She has given up hope.
Yes and no. The world, she says, is going to collapse. Nothing will stop that. But she has thoughts about how to live while everything around us is falling apart.
Here are some of my notes from the book. Some are interesting ideas I did not know. Some are thoughts on how to live "fully and beautifully in a collapsing world."
Jevons paradox describes how whenever humans invent a new form of technology or bring in new policies geared at saving time or money or energy, we wind up increasing overall consumption and negating any efficiencies we were shooting for. Sigh. Take washing machines. They were meant to save time and resources. But we wound up just washing our clothes more often. We invented more fuel-efficient cars and drove more.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 4). Kindle Edition.
Stability, they clarify, is determined by low levels of—and do read this twice, please—inequality and polarization.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 41). Kindle Edition.
We can refuse to play into the algorithms that send us into silos. We can speak up for others, we can normalize noble values. And we can work to find solidity in ourselves so that we can be the kind of mature, awesome humans who keep their cool at such moments in history. We can role-model better behavior.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 42). Kindle Edition.
But why Paris? I’m asked this a lot. Because, I like to say, the chairs face outward.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 56). Kindle Edition.
The city of Paris is a very… human place. More than two million people cram into an area that can be crossed on foot in two hours. Most locals live in tiny apartments (the average size is forty-six square meters with no yard; my current home is twenty-five square meters) that force them onto the street to do their “humaning” in terraces and bars.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 56). Kindle Edition.
Anne explained to me afterward, non does not mean “no” in France. “It means ‘up for a robust [curious] discussion.’ ”
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 58). Kindle Edition.
Curiosity, like kindness, he says, opens up important parts of our brains that get us more agile, adaptable, better able to solve problems, and less anxious.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 58). Kindle Edition.
Before we wrap there is also a third death at play in a collapsing world. It’s the death of the “old normal”—all those structures, assumptions, and mindsets that make up our postindustrial civilization. I’m talking the growth imperative and the supply-demand model; well-being being pegged to economic output; the idea of “getting ahead” of others (neighbors, colleagues, friends); the myth of human subjugation over nature; the endless exploitation of resources and other humans; and all those competitive races to the bottom.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 75). Kindle Edition.
Indeed, moloch is an invisible “force” that arises in competitive scenarios that sees us (often unwittingly) give away or destroy what we hold dear in exchange for a short-term gain but that, ultimately, will leave us all categorically f*.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 101). Kindle Edition.
There’s also the Shirky Principle, named after tech writer Clay Shirky, who first identified the phenomenon, which states: “Institutions will try to preserve the problems to which they are the solution.” That’s what they do.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 121). Kindle Edition.
Jiddu Krishnamurti: “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 130). Kindle Edition.
In (Joanna) Macy’s podcast series, We Are the Great Turning, which was her last project before she passed away in 2025 at ninety-six, she and her cohost Jessica Serrante explain that we’re no longer watching a soccer game and predicting which side will win. “Instead, it’s about getting out onto the field and playing the game. Going all in for the world we want to see.”
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 150). Kindle Edition.
Trump strategist Steve Bannon, for instance, makes no secret of the fact that this is a conscious tactic that the Trump administration deploys. The way to win elections and get policy through, he says, is to “flood the zone with shit.” Folk become so confused and scared by the mad influx of information that they look away and go numb. They will also actively seek despotic leaders as a salve to the confusion. It would be brilliant if it weren’t so… despotic.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 152). Kindle Edition.
All these chaos tactics serve the same function. The conspiracies, the woke slinging matches, the gaslighting, the straw-manning and bullshitting, the grift, the zone-flooding, all take up our time, resources, and emotional balance as we explain and justify, dig out references and experts, and deal with the crazy-making grift and dumbass media explosions. They tie up the press and the Opposition. They tie up activists who then can’t get on with showing a new way beyond the paradigm.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 156). Kindle Edition.
In metamodernist circles, thinkers like Schmachtenberger, Jonathan Rowson, the psychiatrist Dr. Iain McGilchrist, and others remind us that we have to find better ways to “sense-make,” to make meaning, amid the chaos. They suggest a few techniques. One is to seek out wisdom over more data and information.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 157). Kindle Edition.
A number of studies show that being in nature as we try to talk sanity and temper chaos works best.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 157). Kindle Edition.
We can also consciously deactivate our dopamine dependency.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 158). Kindle Edition.
They invite us to ask, “How will I be useless to capitalism today?”
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 158). Kindle Edition.
She (Hannah Arendt) warned cynicism (“a vague pervasive hatred of everyone and everything”), and loneliness paved the path to totalitarianism and fascism. But according to Arendt there was an antidote: to think.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 158). Kindle Edition.
...one of the scientists who conducted the study went on, several years later, to find that the one thing we can rely on to give our life meaning is our commitments. He argued that our commitments—what we do out of an elevating sense of duty—don’t always give pleasure. But that’s somewhat the point. The more we sacrifice for something other than ourselves, the more meaningful value we assign to it.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 184). Kindle Edition.
Love is my answer to most questions.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 218). Kindle Edition.
Our greatest discoveries, the most beautiful art and writing, most moral guidance, and certainly humanity’s cumulative wisdom have emerged from the right side of our brains, buttressed and supported by the left. It’s a dynamic that tends to work well for our species. But here’s the problem. As civilizations become more complex, they go left-brained.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 225). Kindle Edition.
And so I “soul nerd,” to borrow my own term from one of my previous books. This entails studying the wisdoms of the wise people who came before us. I like to collect them; here are a few that, to me, dance in a right-brained way: Wendell Berry: Be joyful, even though you have considered all the facts. W. H. Auden: We must love one another or die. Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen: Sometimes when you don’t fit in, it’s because you belong to the future. How wonderful! You’re going to build the world that you fit into.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 229). Kindle Edition.
But I...think it’s a responsibility to prioritize wisdom; to go right as often as possible; to wrestle with the Socratic questions, the more beautiful questions, the questions that have no answers; to think; to restrain; to rein in thumos; to not know; to allow; to let nature lead us.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 231). Kindle Edition.
Fairy tales are also heroes’ journeys, of course. The protagonist is forced to face treacherous times and evil characters and then returns “home” to guide the community via a moral story. But in fairy tales the characters are mostly kids or women. They don’t have superior “hero” powers and tend to start out fifty yards back from the starting line, often poor or marginalized (Cinderella), locked up or isolated (Rumpelstiltskin), undersized (Thumbelina and Peter Pan) or neglected (Hansel and Gretel). Yet still they step up. Their ordeal is overwhelmingly unfair and cruel. And so, to survive—to bring the tale home for the reader—these little undervalued characters don’t conquer or slay things. Instead, they form alliances with other underdogs, invariably old women with fairy-godmother vibes, elves, small animals, and other natural world friends. So heroic journeys are about being strong and all-powerful, while fairy tales are about collaboration, cooperation, and communication;[*3] about being kind, innovating, listening, trusting; and about rewriting the story in tough times.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 240). Kindle Edition.
Something in us knows that the freedom to create is fundamental to our humanity.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 246). Kindle Edition.
You see, art—whether it’s poetry, music, painting, or literature—gets us paying attention. It cuts through the distraction and chaos that is taking down democracy and polarizing us.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 247). Kindle Edition.
Art exists, and must exist, to shake us awake and into engagement; it should enliven us to take responsibility for our existence.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 247). Kindle Edition.
When quantum physicists attempt to answer what existed before the first two particles entangled, and what energetic force saw them connect, they find themselves using the word “love.” Love is the matrix, the 4D canvas, the infinite vessel, the everything between all the things, the glue, what exists between the words, the pause that holds the thoughts and that powers the aching forward of particle to particle, life to life, human to human. I find all this exhilaratingly comforting.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 264). Kindle Edition.
How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. —Anne Frank
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 267). Kindle Edition.
And ultimately this is what keeps me most faithful to the mission: the insatiable appetite I now have for living fully and in love. I think now of the poem by Rebecca Elson from which I drew the title: As an antidote to fear of death, I eat the stars.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 282). Kindle Edition.
Yes and no. The world, she says, is going to collapse. Nothing will stop that. But she has thoughts about how to live while everything around us is falling apart.
Here are some of my notes from the book. Some are interesting ideas I did not know. Some are thoughts on how to live "fully and beautifully in a collapsing world."
Jevons paradox describes how whenever humans invent a new form of technology or bring in new policies geared at saving time or money or energy, we wind up increasing overall consumption and negating any efficiencies we were shooting for. Sigh. Take washing machines. They were meant to save time and resources. But we wound up just washing our clothes more often. We invented more fuel-efficient cars and drove more.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 4). Kindle Edition.
Stability, they clarify, is determined by low levels of—and do read this twice, please—inequality and polarization.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 41). Kindle Edition.
We can refuse to play into the algorithms that send us into silos. We can speak up for others, we can normalize noble values. And we can work to find solidity in ourselves so that we can be the kind of mature, awesome humans who keep their cool at such moments in history. We can role-model better behavior.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 42). Kindle Edition.
But why Paris? I’m asked this a lot. Because, I like to say, the chairs face outward.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 56). Kindle Edition.
The city of Paris is a very… human place. More than two million people cram into an area that can be crossed on foot in two hours. Most locals live in tiny apartments (the average size is forty-six square meters with no yard; my current home is twenty-five square meters) that force them onto the street to do their “humaning” in terraces and bars.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 56). Kindle Edition.
Anne explained to me afterward, non does not mean “no” in France. “It means ‘up for a robust [curious] discussion.’ ”
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 58). Kindle Edition.
Curiosity, like kindness, he says, opens up important parts of our brains that get us more agile, adaptable, better able to solve problems, and less anxious.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 58). Kindle Edition.
Before we wrap there is also a third death at play in a collapsing world. It’s the death of the “old normal”—all those structures, assumptions, and mindsets that make up our postindustrial civilization. I’m talking the growth imperative and the supply-demand model; well-being being pegged to economic output; the idea of “getting ahead” of others (neighbors, colleagues, friends); the myth of human subjugation over nature; the endless exploitation of resources and other humans; and all those competitive races to the bottom.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 75). Kindle Edition.
Indeed, moloch is an invisible “force” that arises in competitive scenarios that sees us (often unwittingly) give away or destroy what we hold dear in exchange for a short-term gain but that, ultimately, will leave us all categorically f*.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 101). Kindle Edition.
There’s also the Shirky Principle, named after tech writer Clay Shirky, who first identified the phenomenon, which states: “Institutions will try to preserve the problems to which they are the solution.” That’s what they do.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 121). Kindle Edition.
Jiddu Krishnamurti: “It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 130). Kindle Edition.
In (Joanna) Macy’s podcast series, We Are the Great Turning, which was her last project before she passed away in 2025 at ninety-six, she and her cohost Jessica Serrante explain that we’re no longer watching a soccer game and predicting which side will win. “Instead, it’s about getting out onto the field and playing the game. Going all in for the world we want to see.”
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 150). Kindle Edition.
Trump strategist Steve Bannon, for instance, makes no secret of the fact that this is a conscious tactic that the Trump administration deploys. The way to win elections and get policy through, he says, is to “flood the zone with shit.” Folk become so confused and scared by the mad influx of information that they look away and go numb. They will also actively seek despotic leaders as a salve to the confusion. It would be brilliant if it weren’t so… despotic.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 152). Kindle Edition.
All these chaos tactics serve the same function. The conspiracies, the woke slinging matches, the gaslighting, the straw-manning and bullshitting, the grift, the zone-flooding, all take up our time, resources, and emotional balance as we explain and justify, dig out references and experts, and deal with the crazy-making grift and dumbass media explosions. They tie up the press and the Opposition. They tie up activists who then can’t get on with showing a new way beyond the paradigm.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 156). Kindle Edition.
In metamodernist circles, thinkers like Schmachtenberger, Jonathan Rowson, the psychiatrist Dr. Iain McGilchrist, and others remind us that we have to find better ways to “sense-make,” to make meaning, amid the chaos. They suggest a few techniques. One is to seek out wisdom over more data and information.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 157). Kindle Edition.
A number of studies show that being in nature as we try to talk sanity and temper chaos works best.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 157). Kindle Edition.
We can also consciously deactivate our dopamine dependency.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 158). Kindle Edition.
They invite us to ask, “How will I be useless to capitalism today?”
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 158). Kindle Edition.
She (Hannah Arendt) warned cynicism (“a vague pervasive hatred of everyone and everything”), and loneliness paved the path to totalitarianism and fascism. But according to Arendt there was an antidote: to think.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 158). Kindle Edition.
...one of the scientists who conducted the study went on, several years later, to find that the one thing we can rely on to give our life meaning is our commitments. He argued that our commitments—what we do out of an elevating sense of duty—don’t always give pleasure. But that’s somewhat the point. The more we sacrifice for something other than ourselves, the more meaningful value we assign to it.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 184). Kindle Edition.
Love is my answer to most questions.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 218). Kindle Edition.
Our greatest discoveries, the most beautiful art and writing, most moral guidance, and certainly humanity’s cumulative wisdom have emerged from the right side of our brains, buttressed and supported by the left. It’s a dynamic that tends to work well for our species. But here’s the problem. As civilizations become more complex, they go left-brained.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 225). Kindle Edition.
And so I “soul nerd,” to borrow my own term from one of my previous books. This entails studying the wisdoms of the wise people who came before us. I like to collect them; here are a few that, to me, dance in a right-brained way: Wendell Berry: Be joyful, even though you have considered all the facts. W. H. Auden: We must love one another or die. Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen: Sometimes when you don’t fit in, it’s because you belong to the future. How wonderful! You’re going to build the world that you fit into.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 229). Kindle Edition.
But I...think it’s a responsibility to prioritize wisdom; to go right as often as possible; to wrestle with the Socratic questions, the more beautiful questions, the questions that have no answers; to think; to restrain; to rein in thumos; to not know; to allow; to let nature lead us.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 231). Kindle Edition.
Fairy tales are also heroes’ journeys, of course. The protagonist is forced to face treacherous times and evil characters and then returns “home” to guide the community via a moral story. But in fairy tales the characters are mostly kids or women. They don’t have superior “hero” powers and tend to start out fifty yards back from the starting line, often poor or marginalized (Cinderella), locked up or isolated (Rumpelstiltskin), undersized (Thumbelina and Peter Pan) or neglected (Hansel and Gretel). Yet still they step up. Their ordeal is overwhelmingly unfair and cruel. And so, to survive—to bring the tale home for the reader—these little undervalued characters don’t conquer or slay things. Instead, they form alliances with other underdogs, invariably old women with fairy-godmother vibes, elves, small animals, and other natural world friends. So heroic journeys are about being strong and all-powerful, while fairy tales are about collaboration, cooperation, and communication;[*3] about being kind, innovating, listening, trusting; and about rewriting the story in tough times.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 240). Kindle Edition.
Something in us knows that the freedom to create is fundamental to our humanity.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 246). Kindle Edition.
You see, art—whether it’s poetry, music, painting, or literature—gets us paying attention. It cuts through the distraction and chaos that is taking down democracy and polarizing us.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 247). Kindle Edition.
Art exists, and must exist, to shake us awake and into engagement; it should enliven us to take responsibility for our existence.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 247). Kindle Edition.
When quantum physicists attempt to answer what existed before the first two particles entangled, and what energetic force saw them connect, they find themselves using the word “love.” Love is the matrix, the 4D canvas, the infinite vessel, the everything between all the things, the glue, what exists between the words, the pause that holds the thoughts and that powers the aching forward of particle to particle, life to life, human to human. I find all this exhilaratingly comforting.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 264). Kindle Edition.
How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. —Anne Frank
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 267). Kindle Edition.
And ultimately this is what keeps me most faithful to the mission: the insatiable appetite I now have for living fully and in love. I think now of the poem by Rebecca Elson from which I drew the title: As an antidote to fear of death, I eat the stars.
Wilson, Sarah. I Eat the Stars: How to Live Fully and Beautifully in a Collapsing World (p. 282). Kindle Edition.
July 19, 2026
Lots to think about. Read in a few sittings. Video review to follow. Certainly, this author writes about something I’d already had been thinking about - and accepted - but seeing it in print confirmed I’m not alone. This isn’t the stuff people are comfortable talking about.
Want to Read
June 27, 2026came across this book while at work and i looove the cover, haddd to check it out!! (yes i judge books by their covers)
June 22, 2026
Lots to sit with here. Definitely the kind of book you return to, almost as a milestone Che k. And Wilson reminded me of the staggering line by Rilke “Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.”
July 7, 2026
If you do nothing else with yourself this year, you need to read this book. I will personally drive and deliver it to anyone who wishes to read it. No cap.
I picked this up at QBE Books because I liked the cover art. I am not ashamed to admit the fact that i judge books by their covers A LOT! Covers are our first impressions - and boy, do they matter. Upon reading the blurb I turned to Mat (who was with me, as he always is) and said "Look at this! Isn't it pretty?' before he could respond, a worker approached us and implored me to buy it.
'It's our top rated non-fiction of the month,' she said. 'It's only been out two weeks. Everyone who picks it up we urge to buy it. It is brilliant.'
A little stunned, I said, okay!
Best $30 I've ever spent.
If you followed my reading progress, I have been dropping the quotes I enjoyed most from each reading session. I will now drop most of the bits I underlined in this review (I'd love to do all of them, but that would require pretty much writing a book of my own). After reading this, I feel a profound sense of relief, admiration and love for me and my fellow humans. So, if you don't end up picking this up, at least I've keyboard smashed my fav bits in for you:
'Human wipeout by Artifical Intelligence has also become a highly possible reality. We know this because, bizarrely, the people who make it love to tell us so.'
'...collapse is what we are currently in. You know, where things are a bit shit. And instead of returning to normal...they just get more shit.'
'In our global, postindustrial vilisation's case, our carbon emissions and, by proxy, our energy and resources problems are what are ultimately too expensive to fix. And so... we literally can't afford the fossil fuels to make the requisite clean energy transition happen in time.'
I think the person we want to be is kind. Because kindness is the substance that keeps our sense of self vertical. We ultimately ache to downgrade our sense of self-importance and to release our inward obsession with finding our own happiness and to instead give to others. Because it's in relationships, in the giving outward, that we find real joy.'
'...the need for certainty felt like a trap. Things like buying investment properties and creating nest eggs began to feel nonsensical when I could no longer plot where I'd be in five or ten years and when there was no longer a solid map onto which to plot them.'
'Kids now pass into adulthood awkwardly, reluctantly and with mental illness; they turn to Andrew Tate and dark online fantasy worlds.'
'The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.'
'If you're staying attached to the status quo right now, you will be unhinged, because there is nothing there.'
'Every LLM (Large Language Model) user in the MIT study was shown to have suppressed neural engagement and 'a decline in intrinsic motivation and epistemic curiosity' after completing the assigned writing task and ALL OF THEM 'remembered nothing of what they wrote'' !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
'Tens of thousands of workers in Kenya earning U$2 an hour, for example, are currently required to "train" ChatGPT to be morally decent. They literally trawl the net's orgy of violence, self-harm, murder, rape, necrophilia, child abuse, bestiality and incest, and train the LLM not to generate harmful content.'
'What if we've ruined this gift we were granted and just thrown the whole lot under the truck, for ourselves, for the innocent children to come, the animals and eveything else that makes up the web of life?'
'When the ordinary thought of a highly cultivated people begins to regard having children as a question of pros and cons, the great turning point has come.'
'In general, it is the rich who have the most to gain from clinging to the 'old normal'.
'For sure, humanity has faced many of the crises before us today, and others besides. However! We've not faced so many ALL AT ONCE.'
'What is it with the tech bros' technofascist takeover? Why are they being "allowed" to build killer robots? And to dictate global politics? Why isn't anyone stopping them?'
'We have spent decades, centuries, rejecting and devaluing "soft qualities" - empathy, compassion, humility etc. - that define us as humans, as divine organisms that belong to the incredible energetic force that is Life.'
'With allostasis, healthy systems also crave stability after a change, but the baseline of that stability can be somewhere new.'
'A gaslighter will casually make an offensive or problematic claim and then focus the discussion on the emotional response it elicits in the other person. Strawmanning... entails deliberately misrepresenting or oversimplifying an opponents position to make it easier to argue against.'
'collapse won't be like the movies.'
'I like to remind myself that humans are design to survive austerity. What we'd characterise as extreme poverty today was, until a few centuries ago, the condition of 94 percent of people on Earth.'
'Many truths can exist at once.'
'Happiness can't be relied on as a measure of our life's meaning.'
'If all else fails, or you lose focus, just care. Care all over the place. When a world sees care in other people's faces, it shifts.'
'Keep being outraged. Our outrage is the spark of our common humanity.'
'Since the beginning of time, people have had children in dark times who, often, grew up to experience horribly declining conditions throughout their entire lives. I would argue until the end of days that their lives are worthy and that their contribution is entirely necessary.'
'I could choose to exist, anew. From ground zero, I could opt back in.'
'We must create art in the apocalypse.'
I picked this up at QBE Books because I liked the cover art. I am not ashamed to admit the fact that i judge books by their covers A LOT! Covers are our first impressions - and boy, do they matter. Upon reading the blurb I turned to Mat (who was with me, as he always is) and said "Look at this! Isn't it pretty?' before he could respond, a worker approached us and implored me to buy it.
'It's our top rated non-fiction of the month,' she said. 'It's only been out two weeks. Everyone who picks it up we urge to buy it. It is brilliant.'
A little stunned, I said, okay!
Best $30 I've ever spent.
If you followed my reading progress, I have been dropping the quotes I enjoyed most from each reading session. I will now drop most of the bits I underlined in this review (I'd love to do all of them, but that would require pretty much writing a book of my own). After reading this, I feel a profound sense of relief, admiration and love for me and my fellow humans. So, if you don't end up picking this up, at least I've keyboard smashed my fav bits in for you:
'Human wipeout by Artifical Intelligence has also become a highly possible reality. We know this because, bizarrely, the people who make it love to tell us so.'
'...collapse is what we are currently in. You know, where things are a bit shit. And instead of returning to normal...they just get more shit.'
'In our global, postindustrial vilisation's case, our carbon emissions and, by proxy, our energy and resources problems are what are ultimately too expensive to fix. And so... we literally can't afford the fossil fuels to make the requisite clean energy transition happen in time.'
I think the person we want to be is kind. Because kindness is the substance that keeps our sense of self vertical. We ultimately ache to downgrade our sense of self-importance and to release our inward obsession with finding our own happiness and to instead give to others. Because it's in relationships, in the giving outward, that we find real joy.'
'...the need for certainty felt like a trap. Things like buying investment properties and creating nest eggs began to feel nonsensical when I could no longer plot where I'd be in five or ten years and when there was no longer a solid map onto which to plot them.'
'Kids now pass into adulthood awkwardly, reluctantly and with mental illness; they turn to Andrew Tate and dark online fantasy worlds.'
'The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.'
'If you're staying attached to the status quo right now, you will be unhinged, because there is nothing there.'
'Every LLM (Large Language Model) user in the MIT study was shown to have suppressed neural engagement and 'a decline in intrinsic motivation and epistemic curiosity' after completing the assigned writing task and ALL OF THEM 'remembered nothing of what they wrote'' !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
'Tens of thousands of workers in Kenya earning U$2 an hour, for example, are currently required to "train" ChatGPT to be morally decent. They literally trawl the net's orgy of violence, self-harm, murder, rape, necrophilia, child abuse, bestiality and incest, and train the LLM not to generate harmful content.'
'What if we've ruined this gift we were granted and just thrown the whole lot under the truck, for ourselves, for the innocent children to come, the animals and eveything else that makes up the web of life?'
'When the ordinary thought of a highly cultivated people begins to regard having children as a question of pros and cons, the great turning point has come.'
'In general, it is the rich who have the most to gain from clinging to the 'old normal'.
'For sure, humanity has faced many of the crises before us today, and others besides. However! We've not faced so many ALL AT ONCE.'
'What is it with the tech bros' technofascist takeover? Why are they being "allowed" to build killer robots? And to dictate global politics? Why isn't anyone stopping them?'
'We have spent decades, centuries, rejecting and devaluing "soft qualities" - empathy, compassion, humility etc. - that define us as humans, as divine organisms that belong to the incredible energetic force that is Life.'
'With allostasis, healthy systems also crave stability after a change, but the baseline of that stability can be somewhere new.'
'A gaslighter will casually make an offensive or problematic claim and then focus the discussion on the emotional response it elicits in the other person. Strawmanning... entails deliberately misrepresenting or oversimplifying an opponents position to make it easier to argue against.'
'collapse won't be like the movies.'
'I like to remind myself that humans are design to survive austerity. What we'd characterise as extreme poverty today was, until a few centuries ago, the condition of 94 percent of people on Earth.'
'Many truths can exist at once.'
'Happiness can't be relied on as a measure of our life's meaning.'
'If all else fails, or you lose focus, just care. Care all over the place. When a world sees care in other people's faces, it shifts.'
'Keep being outraged. Our outrage is the spark of our common humanity.'
'Since the beginning of time, people have had children in dark times who, often, grew up to experience horribly declining conditions throughout their entire lives. I would argue until the end of days that their lives are worthy and that their contribution is entirely necessary.'
'I could choose to exist, anew. From ground zero, I could opt back in.'
'We must create art in the apocalypse.'
July 26, 2026
Wanted to love this one. I saw her at an event and bought the book from her there, so I went in genuinely backing it.
She'd mentioned leaving space in the margins for notes. Boy did I make notes, mostly in the early chapters, fact checking some of the research she was presenting. When she talks about all the research she's done, I think I was expecting something more like a Naomi Klein epic. It wasn't that. It felt more Eat Pray Love with civilisation collapse as a backdrop. It read like someone who has read some authors in the field, and she does name drop a few she knows personally, but it wasn't a lit review.
I think I would have liked following her Substack serialisation more than reading the book itself.
It did make me think about privilege though, her moving to Paris and living that life while considering the collapse of civilisation. Very different to someone living in a food desert, struggling to make ends meet, dealing with climate change, political change, impending AI change. But then who's to say her life is all roses, it patently isn't, she's struggling through her own things too. So it made me check my own privilege as much as hers.
There's an honesty in it, it's memoirish rather than non fiction, but from an incongruous setting, which is part of what makes it feel a little off. I feel like it could have done with tighter editing, more research into adjacent topics (there was a fair bit of repetition), and perhaps more consideration of what collapse means to the wider community rather than just her own subscribers' questions.
I struggled to the end, and spent half the time listening to it as an audiobook. It wasn't embracing. I can see why it's polarising. I actually think going to an area already affected by collapse might have given it a more genuine feel.
She'd mentioned leaving space in the margins for notes. Boy did I make notes, mostly in the early chapters, fact checking some of the research she was presenting. When she talks about all the research she's done, I think I was expecting something more like a Naomi Klein epic. It wasn't that. It felt more Eat Pray Love with civilisation collapse as a backdrop. It read like someone who has read some authors in the field, and she does name drop a few she knows personally, but it wasn't a lit review.
I think I would have liked following her Substack serialisation more than reading the book itself.
It did make me think about privilege though, her moving to Paris and living that life while considering the collapse of civilisation. Very different to someone living in a food desert, struggling to make ends meet, dealing with climate change, political change, impending AI change. But then who's to say her life is all roses, it patently isn't, she's struggling through her own things too. So it made me check my own privilege as much as hers.
There's an honesty in it, it's memoirish rather than non fiction, but from an incongruous setting, which is part of what makes it feel a little off. I feel like it could have done with tighter editing, more research into adjacent topics (there was a fair bit of repetition), and perhaps more consideration of what collapse means to the wider community rather than just her own subscribers' questions.
I struggled to the end, and spent half the time listening to it as an audiobook. It wasn't embracing. I can see why it's polarising. I actually think going to an area already affected by collapse might have given it a more genuine feel.
July 29, 2026
I didn't like the first half because, as young as I am, I never truly had hope to begin with. I turned 18 in 2021. My entire adulthood has just been learning Exactly how shit it is. The world was collapsing faster than I could learn about it.
So I felt that I have already done the work that the first part of this book walks you through. I have cried (I've even wailed), and been rebutted constantly about my hopelessness with climate change in particular, but also ... Everything. I have felt so lonely in my hopelessness and despair.
But then! To see my hopelessness fucking written down!!!!!! What a massive relief. Finally! Finally! Alhamdulillah. So mostly I then I felt relieved and not like this fringe cynic about the way things are going.
But the thing that this book did, and why it's got all these stars from me (uneaten). It looks past the tipping point and through the shit. In that, I felt that there was collapse and it was imminent but I could not see a world beyond that,,, and maybe, the hope you've given up is just hope for sustaining the current system. Because actually, this book restored some of my hope for the future through and beyond collapse.
Thanks Sarah Wilson 🙀😸🪩
So I felt that I have already done the work that the first part of this book walks you through. I have cried (I've even wailed), and been rebutted constantly about my hopelessness with climate change in particular, but also ... Everything. I have felt so lonely in my hopelessness and despair.
But then! To see my hopelessness fucking written down!!!!!! What a massive relief. Finally! Finally! Alhamdulillah. So mostly I then I felt relieved and not like this fringe cynic about the way things are going.
But the thing that this book did, and why it's got all these stars from me (uneaten). It looks past the tipping point and through the shit. In that, I felt that there was collapse and it was imminent but I could not see a world beyond that,,, and maybe, the hope you've given up is just hope for sustaining the current system. Because actually, this book restored some of my hope for the future through and beyond collapse.
Thanks Sarah Wilson 🙀😸🪩
Read
August 13, 2026I would give this book five stars, but then I feel like I’d have to explain… and I don’t know how.
June 28, 2026
"Our grief and fear exist only because love was there first. We grieve and fear losing only what we love."
I journeyed through all the below thoughts and darker while reading this book but this line made everything, makes everything so much more manageable. Do you want to be right or do you want to love?
I was on the precipice of absolute panic while reading most of this book. My flaring internal arguments being met with my usual selfsoothing words that no longer provided any salve to my anxieties. It has been very confronting. You can not go back to a past self after reading this. There is maybe only just enough silver linings provided to prevent a full blown existential panic attack throughout the book. Maybe? I was shaken to see i have seemingly built a nest of comfort around me in plush silks and lovely things, and what of this when the water is contaminated and the sun a ball of angrier fire? I am stuck in a childish desire for comfort, avoiding any pain and despair i can but with what?
As the world collapses further i want to inhabit the space of the " Warriors of the human spirit, Meg writes, are the adults who do not flee, but who bear it, or who abide', as she puts it
They serve as beacons of an ancient story that tells of the goodness, generosity, and creativity of humanity. You will know them by their compassionate presence You can identify them by their cheerfulness. When asked how they do it, they will tell you about discipline dedication, and the need for community."
Although that still may reek of egoism, surely its healthier than the ego built on dresses and tchotchkes (and avoidance?) ?
In the words of Mary Oliver "we have wound up breathing just a little, and calling it a life".
I nearly got fully stuck in the moloch but I urge you to persevere through the chapters, arriving at the chapters on dance, humble, wisdom....
A picture perfect performance of the left brain right brain theory, GO RIGHT!
I arrived at the end if this book crying big, feeling light and held because its all already here. The tools. Our guru is nature, its life... but theres work to do!
"this poem by Paul Fleischman:
On the mythic dav of Armageddon, when the world is destroyed and every sinner stands naked and unsupported in the void to face fate in accordance with his or her deeds. I imagine that the tribunal judging us won't consist of winged angels or horned devils, but will be a black capped chickadee, a lynx and a birch tree. They will know as clearly as you and I do that one predator species has cut down every virgin forest, killed as many plants and animals as he could get away with, spoiled every source of fresh water and fouled every ocean on the planet. Who can you and I bring forward as our on character witnesses? Right now, I'm cultivating friendships with black bears, a woodlot, and a Canadian river Im not saving nature. I'm letting nature save me.?"
I want to be humbled by forming a friendship with a river.
I journeyed through all the below thoughts and darker while reading this book but this line made everything, makes everything so much more manageable. Do you want to be right or do you want to love?
I was on the precipice of absolute panic while reading most of this book. My flaring internal arguments being met with my usual selfsoothing words that no longer provided any salve to my anxieties. It has been very confronting. You can not go back to a past self after reading this. There is maybe only just enough silver linings provided to prevent a full blown existential panic attack throughout the book. Maybe? I was shaken to see i have seemingly built a nest of comfort around me in plush silks and lovely things, and what of this when the water is contaminated and the sun a ball of angrier fire? I am stuck in a childish desire for comfort, avoiding any pain and despair i can but with what?
As the world collapses further i want to inhabit the space of the " Warriors of the human spirit, Meg writes, are the adults who do not flee, but who bear it, or who abide', as she puts it
They serve as beacons of an ancient story that tells of the goodness, generosity, and creativity of humanity. You will know them by their compassionate presence You can identify them by their cheerfulness. When asked how they do it, they will tell you about discipline dedication, and the need for community."
Although that still may reek of egoism, surely its healthier than the ego built on dresses and tchotchkes (and avoidance?) ?
In the words of Mary Oliver "we have wound up breathing just a little, and calling it a life".
I nearly got fully stuck in the moloch but I urge you to persevere through the chapters, arriving at the chapters on dance, humble, wisdom....
A picture perfect performance of the left brain right brain theory, GO RIGHT!
I arrived at the end if this book crying big, feeling light and held because its all already here. The tools. Our guru is nature, its life... but theres work to do!
"this poem by Paul Fleischman:
On the mythic dav of Armageddon, when the world is destroyed and every sinner stands naked and unsupported in the void to face fate in accordance with his or her deeds. I imagine that the tribunal judging us won't consist of winged angels or horned devils, but will be a black capped chickadee, a lynx and a birch tree. They will know as clearly as you and I do that one predator species has cut down every virgin forest, killed as many plants and animals as he could get away with, spoiled every source of fresh water and fouled every ocean on the planet. Who can you and I bring forward as our on character witnesses? Right now, I'm cultivating friendships with black bears, a woodlot, and a Canadian river Im not saving nature. I'm letting nature save me.?"
I want to be humbled by forming a friendship with a river.
July 21, 2026
This was not the book I thought I was going to get when I picked up this book! If you don't have the mental capacity to read about societal/civilisational collapse, then I would not recommend you read this. I felt challenged (in a good way) by some of the ideas put forward but also some views felt quite murky and based on 'vibes', not research. But it has encouraged me to research about it from a more thorough academic standpoint.
Review of advance copy
A great honest book that brings together a thoughtful approach and reckoning with our collective age of collapse. It’s part philosophical meditation, part survival guide, and part personal reckoning with ecological grief, futurology, poly-crisis, political failure, and contemporary instability. Wilson positions herself against both the relentless positivity of wellness culture and the raging nihilism. The book moves through memoir, philosophy, travel writing, psychology, wisdom, climate science, and spiritual reflection with a restless, searching energy. She draws on thinkers ranging from the Stoics to Buddhist philosophy, alongside conversations with activists, scientists, and everyday people and scenarios trying to navigate an unstable world. It argues that art, ritual, friendship, slowness, and attentiveness become even more necessary during periods of uncertainty. An important set of distilled conversation in each chapter for our liminal, and very uncertain time. She concludes that one of the effective approaches to the difficult now is to do less, we have been 'efforting' so hard and to only be ourselves.
June 14, 2026
Could not rate this book more highly. I pre ordered and inhaled it over a couple of days. It made me feel sane, less alone and although the concept of Collapse is unsettling or even frightening, not talking about it doesn’t make it less so. Pretending it’s not happening is exhausting.
I’ve no idea how Sarah managed to bring all of the huge issues together in the way she did, to make it all make more sense AND make it feel like it could just possibly be a liberating time to be alive. A time to slow down and simplify. How appealing that sounds.
How to be ‘anti-chaos’ despite ‘mostly existing in indignant shock a lot of the time’.
This book is brilliant. A must read if you’re up for it
I’ve no idea how Sarah managed to bring all of the huge issues together in the way she did, to make it all make more sense AND make it feel like it could just possibly be a liberating time to be alive. A time to slow down and simplify. How appealing that sounds.
How to be ‘anti-chaos’ despite ‘mostly existing in indignant shock a lot of the time’.
This book is brilliant. A must read if you’re up for it
July 23, 2026
This was a refreshing read. I was actually surprised because I couldn't follow her other books on Quitting Sugar. That's simple not in my DNA to do.
However, this...this was good. I'm no doomsday person but at some point we all have to become a bit of a realist and realise the world is going to shit. That's what this book discusses and it is well researched and full of wonderful quotes from great literature.
I'm also intrigued about the University of Chicago course called "Are we doomed?" Chicago is my home city even though I've been in Australia for the last 25 years.
At some point you have to let truth start to take the place of hope and I don't think that is being doomist. With the climate crisis, AI and the way billionaires are running/ruining the planet.
There's some interesting research she shows about what happened during the blitz and rations - people were actually happier than they ever have been.
A good example also was what people born in 1900 and what they lived through. I'm sure you can imagine all the events they lived through during that time period.
Some suggestions she said was to learn survivalist skills which I could use.
And I love how she said that 40+ women care the most. We are angry mothers and we have the ability to make some changes and survive.
However, this...this was good. I'm no doomsday person but at some point we all have to become a bit of a realist and realise the world is going to shit. That's what this book discusses and it is well researched and full of wonderful quotes from great literature.
I'm also intrigued about the University of Chicago course called "Are we doomed?" Chicago is my home city even though I've been in Australia for the last 25 years.
At some point you have to let truth start to take the place of hope and I don't think that is being doomist. With the climate crisis, AI and the way billionaires are running/ruining the planet.
There's some interesting research she shows about what happened during the blitz and rations - people were actually happier than they ever have been.
A good example also was what people born in 1900 and what they lived through. I'm sure you can imagine all the events they lived through during that time period.
Some suggestions she said was to learn survivalist skills which I could use.
And I love how she said that 40+ women care the most. We are angry mothers and we have the ability to make some changes and survive.
July 20, 2026
Well, this book appears to be polarizing. Understandably so. In order to really digest what is being said here, you have to be open to holding something so total and overwhelming that it makes your survival instincts kick in. It takes a while (and a lot of psychological work) to cross the bridge from flight-or-flight to finding openness and a willingness to embrace reality. Out of this acceptance comes a certain kind of spiritual freedom, even in the face of increasingly constricting physical confines. I think the author’s privilege has facilitated this psychological transformation, and it doesn’t make what she’s saying less true. Suffering is coming for all of us. Laying down our weapons and channeling the best of human nature for as long as we can is not a panacea, but it is a compass pointed towards home.
June 26, 2026
dnf-ed at 13%. the author just seems so full of herself to the point where it makes the book jarring. it's consistently going back and forth between facts and random details of her life that semi-relate. and her writing style is draining. she literally pats herself on the back while writing, saying things like "i'm on a roll." don't interrupt that roll just to be meta! it makes it feel incredibly disjointed. she also tells the reader about a date she went on and then adds an annotation to the side to let you know what came of the relationship. i don't care! get on with it! let's not forget the fact that she put 3 sentences on a full page to "give us time to process what she just said" lady you're not sharing any groundbreaking information that i didn't know before, you are just wasting paper. i've never read a self-help-type book before, is this level of author self-reference and self-aggrandizing normal? if so, this is NOT the genre for me.
July 6, 2026
While i do think this book holds some interesting truths, (generally) harmless advice, and opinions and beliefs i can find solace in, ultimately it falls flat at delivering hard hitting conclusions - making the book much more depressing than inspiring. This comes from lackluster realizations of “letting go” and “looking towards community” that have already been explored ad nauseam. It feels repetitive after a certain point, with callbacks that seem to be callbacks just for the sake of referencing previous points rather than expanding on them. I think this comes from the format of this novel being an adaptation of the author’s substack/blog (iirc). The only really takeaways from the book are some thought provoking statement ~50 pages or so, and that we’re actually pretty screwed.
I think the perfect summation for this book comes from the sentence “After my ayahuasca experience, I took to dancing.” I just don’t think i’m in the audience for this book
I think the perfect summation for this book comes from the sentence “After my ayahuasca experience, I took to dancing.” I just don’t think i’m in the audience for this book
July 5, 2026
I had such high hopes for this one because the premise sounded fascinating. Sadly, it really didn’t deliver for me.
The takeaway seemed to be: the world is falling apart, we can’t do anything about it, preparing ourselves won’t help — but love will somehow save us. And honestly? I didn’t need a whole book to tell me that.
Not the hopeful, eye-opening or constructive read I was hoping for. Poetic at times, yes. But ultimately disappointing.
The takeaway seemed to be: the world is falling apart, we can’t do anything about it, preparing ourselves won’t help — but love will somehow save us. And honestly? I didn’t need a whole book to tell me that.
Not the hopeful, eye-opening or constructive read I was hoping for. Poetic at times, yes. But ultimately disappointing.
August 1, 2026
2 / 10% into listening to this book has already given me some clarity; it’s abundantly clear that I’m living life fully and beautifully and do not need to finish it.
2 ⭐️ Audiobook read by Sarah Wilson
2 ⭐️ Audiobook read by Sarah Wilson
Read
August 6, 2026I can’t really give a book that tells us about our world collapsing and that we need to let go of any hope a rating. The message itself is important but devastating and I recommend going into this book being mentally prepared for the challenging punch in the face we probably all need, but it would have been nice to be left with SOME hope.
Not really a fan of the flowery suggested response by the author honestly but I think that’s a me problem.
Not really a fan of the flowery suggested response by the author honestly but I think that’s a me problem.
August 1, 2026
Wow. A great premise and intro that gradually turns into a festival of smug self-congratulation as to how helpful she's been to others, along with frequent reports of her weeping copiously about the coming systemic collapses. Three days in one case. Three. If you've been even remotely aware of climate change, the decline worldwide of democracy, and the fragility of supply chains which was glaringly obvious during the pandemic, there's very little that's new here. I got tired of her constant urging the reader to go into Nature as a cure for pretty much everything and the other advice she gives is not realistic in many cases and not all the helpful. The book is annoying, badly edited, and it's easy for someone who grew up in a fairly self-sufficient family rural Australian home to propose ways to deal with collapse that are simply not available to most urban people. And she offers this advice from Paris (mentioned dozens of times) where she hobnobs with bigwigs in the field and eats at upscale restaurants. Her voice drew me in and then her voice threw me out because she often comes off as arrogant and narcissistic.
July 10, 2026
One of the most random book I’ve ever read. It has interesting cover (perhaps that’s how I ended up with it), and a few good quotes across the book. The rest was just random bunch of thoughts; panic and statements about various aspects of world collapsing and we need to adult up. Well..
July 30, 2026
If you are thinking of reading this book to help assist you with feeling more calm and peaceful about climate change and an economic collapse do yourself a favour, do not read this book.
If you’re looking for a book that will help you make a more meaningful impact, and cut down your impact on the planet, don’t bother reading this book. You won’t learn anything you don’t already know.
If you’re looking for a book that will help you make a more meaningful impact, and cut down your impact on the planet, don’t bother reading this book. You won’t learn anything you don’t already know.
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