From Dr Seuss to All Quiet on the Western Front: 19 books to help you find hope, sense and resistance in difficult times

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https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/dec/21/from-dr-seuss-to-all-quiet-on-the-western-front-19-books-to-help-you-find-hope-sense-and-resistance-in-difficult-times

From Dr Seuss to All Quiet on the Western Front: 19 books to help you find hope, sense and resistance in difficult times

Writers, activists and politicians on the books they turn to for wisdom and perspective – and to restore their faith in human nature

Paul Daley
Sat 20 Dec 2025 14.00 EST

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Bob Brown: ‘I frequently give this book to friends’
The environmental activist and writer Bob Brown says: “Worst-case scenario is that if we keep knocking down [environmental] tipping points like we did this year then by 2050 there’ll be a 25% collapse in the economy and 2 billion people dead.”

The Lorax by Dr Seuss
That is why his first recommendation is The Lorax, a picture book by the children’s author Dr Seuss, whose central character declares: “I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees.”

“It ends with the word ‘unless’. Unless we do something we’re leaving our kids a very troublesome mess. I frequently give this book to friends,” the former Greens leader says.

“It’s a surface look at the situation the world thinks it’s in where everyone says it’s about the economy. But it’s not. It’s about the environment with the economy subservient to that.”

Brown also offers 12 Rules for Strife, a comic book call to action and social unity by Jeff Sparrow and Sam Wallman, as well as historian Mark McKenna’s recently released The Shortest History of Australia.

… more … Also nonfiction and films…

(What is your go to book?)