Where We Are Going Today: ‘In Praise of Good Bookstores’

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Updated 24 August 2024
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Where We Are Going Today: ‘In Praise of Good Bookstores’

Author: JEFF DEUTSCH

Do we need bookstores in the twenty-first century? If so, what makes a good one? In this beautifully written book, Jeff Deutsch—the former director of Chicago’s Seminary Co-op Bookstores, one of the finest bookstores in the world—pays loving tribute to one of our most important and endangered civic institutions.

He considers how qualities like space, time, abundance, and community find expression in a good bookstore.

 


What We Are Reading Today: The Power of Hope by Carol Graham

Updated 25 February 2026
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What We Are Reading Today: The Power of Hope by Carol Graham

In a society marked by extreme inequality of income and opportunity, why should economists care about how people feel? The truth is that feelings of well-being are critical metrics that predict future life outcomes.

In this timely and innovative account, economist Carol Graham argues for the importance of hope—little studied in economics at present—as an independent dimension of well-being.

Given America’s current mental health crisis, thrown into stark relief by COVID, hope may be the most important measure of well-being, and researchers are tracking trends in hope as a key factor in understanding the rising numbers of “deaths of despair” and premature mortality.

Graham, an authority on the study of well-being, points to empirical evidence demonstrating that hope can improve people’s life outcomes and that despair can destroy them. These findings, she argues, merit deeper exploration.