Book Study Group
Register here for 2026 Book Study Group sessions.
After registering, Zoom will send you a confirmation email with your personal link for joining the meetings. Please do not share that link; it is yours alone.
Share the fun of the Book Study Group by encouraging others to register with the link above.
Currently reading:
Who we Are Becoming Matters: the Courage, Wisdom, and Aloha We Need in a Timeplace of Collapse
By Norma Kaweloku Wong (2026)
AND
The Beginning Comes After the End: Notes on a World of Change
By Rebecca Solnit (2026)
We will be reading these two short books as companion pieces.
Who We Are Becoming Matters has been described as part visionary framework, part story-poem-instruction manual, and invites readers into a deeper examination of how we grow, relate, and lead in times of uncertainty. Drawing on decades of Zen training, Indigenous Hawaiian knowledge, political strategy, and community practice, Wong explores the internal and collective shifts required to evolve with intention.
In The Beginning Comes After the End, (a sequel to Solnit’s Hope in the Dark), Solnit surveys a world that has changed dramatically since the year 1960. Despite the forces seeking to turn back the clock on history, change is not a possibility; it is an inevitability. Solnit suggests that the changes amount to nothing less than dismantling an old civilization and building a new one, whose newness is often the return of the old ways and wisdoms. In this rising worldview, interconnection is a core idea and value. But because the transformation is obscured within a longer arc of history, its scale is seldom recognized.
Schedule:
May 11 through June 22, 2026
Every other Monday for 90 minutes
9:00 am PT / 10:00 am MT / 11:00 am CT / 12:00 pm ET
May 11 – Who We Are Becoming Matters – Foreword, Preface, Chapters 1-6
May 25 – Who We Are Becoming Matters – Chapters 7-14
June 8 – The Beginning Comes After the End – Chapters 1-5
June 22 – The Beginning Comes After the End – Chapters 6-9
The Book Study Group has an online group where between-meeting discussions, further resources, and commentary about reading and issues of the day appear. You can post to the online discussion group by addressing an email to bsg-online-discussion@googlegroups.org.
If you have any questions about the EAN Book Study Group, please contact Carl Lashley.
Book Study Group guidelines are simple:
Read the chapters and bring your thoughts to the next meeting.
Register for the meetings via Zoom (using the REGISTER link above). After registering, Zoom will send you a unique link to join the series of meetings. Do not share the link, it is unique to you.
About the Book Study Group
Since 2018, between 20 and 30 avid readers meet every two weeks via Zoom to discuss. We choose books with depth and relevance to issues of the day.
List of previous books read by the Book Study Group.
Vision for the Book Study Group
We participate in in-depth discussions and share ideas on books that speak to our ecological integrity, social and economic justice, and peaceful coexistence.
We educate ourselves about ecological, social, economic concerns so that we have better and more effective ideas about how to co-create change, and act from knowledge and insight gained through our reading and our dialogue.
We attract diversity.
We have facilitators trained in helping diverse groups of individuals with different approaches and ideas to have discussions where all can be heard.
We can act as a possible educational resource for other action groups within EAN
We continue to select books by having members offer suggestions, and then choose by majority vote/agreement
We encourage the formation of smaller groups from within the book group who want to chat, discuss, and just enjoy each other’s company
We hold an annual BIG READ for all members of EAN
We conclude each meeting with an action step to reduce GHG in the atmosphere.
