Explore
The subjects below form connected paths through our collection. Some look backward, exploring the stories, histories, and evolutionary journey that brought us here. Others turn toward the living world, the crises of our time, the discoveries that widen our understanding, and the practical and imaginative possibilities that might help us live differently.
They are starting points for curiosity, bringing together books that question familiar assumptions, illuminate overlooked connections, preserve useful knowledge, and open space for new ways of seeing.
Stories We Inherit
The beliefs, histories, and cultural stories that shape how we understand the world
Every culture passes on stories about who we are, where we came from, what matters, and how life is meant to be lived. This section explores religion, mythology, ideology, economics, media, and the often-unquestioned assumptions of civilization. These books examine how inherited stories arose, what they reveal or conceal, how they stand up to history and evidence, and how they continue to shape our choices, institutions, and sense of what is possible.
Writers and thinkers you may encounter: Daniel Quinn, Bart D. Ehrman, Elaine Pagels, Carl Sagan, Edward Said, Naomi Oreskes, Marina Warner, Joseph Campbell, Neil Postman, Daniel C. Dennett, Derrick Jensen, Sam Harris, Richard Elliott Friedman, Francesca Stavrakopoulou, Israel Finkelstein, Dan Barker, and many more.
The Polycrisis
How today’s ecological, social, economic, and technological crises connect
Climate disruption, biodiversity loss, resource depletion, economic instability, inequality, conflict, pandemics, technological risk, and social fragmentation do not unfold separately. They interact across tightly connected systems, often intensifying one another and narrowing the space for simple solutions. These books help us understand both the individual crises and the deeper structures, feedback loops, and cultural assumptions that bind them together, while exploring risk, resilience, adaptation, and meaningful response.
Writers and thinkers you may encounter: Donella Meadows, Thomas Homer-Dixon, Richard Heinberg, Elizabeth Kolbert, William E. Rees, James Hansen, David Wallace-Wells, Johan Rockström, Tim Flannery, David Suzuki, J.B. MacKinnon, Nate Hagens, James Lovelock, and many more.
Humanity’s Journey
Human origins, deep history, and the many ways people have lived
Our species lived for hundreds of thousands of years before cities, states, and industrial economies emerged. This section follows humanity through evolution, migration, foraging and tribal societies, agriculture, empire, and civilization, while questioning the familiar story of a single inevitable march toward progress. It explores both what humans share and the remarkable diversity of cultures, social arrangements, and ways of belonging that have existed across time.
Writers and thinkers you may encounter: Chris Stringer, Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, Charles Darwin, Wade Davis, James C. Scott, David Graeber and David Wengrow, Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Marshall Sahlins, Kim TallBear, Brian Fagan, and many more.
Ecology & Kinship
Understanding our relationships within the wider community of life
We are not separate observers standing outside nature. Our bodies, communities, food, breath, and futures are woven into relationships with plants, other animals, fungi, water, soil, climate, and one another. These books explore ecology, evolution, interdependence, Indigenous knowledge, animal lives, restoration, and reciprocity. Together, they invite us to move beyond seeing the living world merely as a collection of resources and recognize it as a community to which we belong.
Writers and thinkers you may encounter: Robin Wall Kimmerer, Rachel Carson, Aldo Leopold, Nancy J. Turner, Lynn Margulis, Frans de Waal, Ed Yong, Carl Safina, David Abram, Suzanne Simard, James Lovelock, and many more.
Wonder & Imagination
Stories and ideas that awaken curiosity and widen the possible
Not every valuable book explains, argues, or instructs. Fiction, poetry, art, nature writing, fantasy, science fiction, and children’s literature can loosen the grip of the familiar and let us experience the world through other lives and perspectives. This section celebrates books that deepen attention, nurture empathy, restore a sense of astonishment, and expand the imagination from which discovery and meaningful change can begin.
Writers and thinkers you may encounter: Ursula K. Le Guin, Octavia E. Butler, Carl Sagan, Mary Oliver, Waubgeshig Rice, Richard Wagamese, Sy Montgomery, Terry Tempest Williams, Philip Pullman, Shaun Tan, Farley Mowat, Richard Powers, and many more.
Alternative Futures
Imagining and creating more resilient, just, and life-sustaining ways forward
The systems we have inherited are not the only possibilities available to us. This section explores different ways of organizing communities, economies, technologies, education, governance, and our relationships with the land. It brings together visionary fiction, social criticism, systems thinking, and grounded experiments that move beyond endless growth and ecological overshoot, helping us imagine adaptation, renewal, and entirely different ways of living together.
Writers and thinkers you may encounter: Joanna Macy, Rob Hopkins, Kate Raworth, Murray Bookchin, Jason Hickel, Elinor Ostrom, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Kim Stanley Robinson, Rebecca Solnit, Aric McBay, Andres R. Edwards, and many more.
Sustainable Living
Living well within ecological limits, with resilience, connection, and enough
A sustainable life is not simply about buying greener products. It asks how we might meet our needs while reducing harm, strengthening relationships, and becoming more rooted in place. These books explore sufficiency, simpler living, resilient homes and communities, local food, appropriate technology, health, purpose, and forms of abundance that do not depend on endless consumption or material growth.
Writers and thinkers you may encounter: E. F. Schumacher, Wendell Berry, Ivan Illich, David Holmgren, Bill Mollison, Vicki Robin, Toby Hemenway, Juliet Schor, Samuel Alexander, Gene Logsdon, George Monbiot, and many more.
Practical Skills
Useful knowledge for growing, building, repairing, making, and sharing
Ideas become more powerful when they can be put into practice. This section gathers trustworthy guides to gardening, food preservation, carpentry, repair, sewing, natural building, first aid, outdoor skills, tool use, and other forms of hands-on knowledge. These books can help people become more capable, less dependent on disposable systems, and better able to contribute to their households, neighbourhoods, and communities.
Writers and guides you may encounter: John Seymour, Carla Emery, Lloyd Kahn, Mors Kochanski, Christopher Schwarz, Niki Jabbour, Les Stroud, Roy Underhill, Steven Rinella, Dave Canterbury, Eric Sloane, Leigh Joseph, and many more.
Help Shape the Collection
These paths are not complete or final. The Book & Lantern will continue to grow through the books, questions, experience, and curiosity shared by people throughout Squamish. If you have a book connected to these subjects, a title that changed how you see the world, or an area you believe deserves greater attention, we would be glad to hear from you.
Donate a book, offer one through the Book Sharing Network, or send us a recommendation. Every thoughtful contribution can help worthwhile books and ideas reach another reader.