Hope’s work: Facing the future in an age of crises (DLT, 2021) is a short book asking how we might face our deeply disturbed times with a measure of conscious, careful hope.
I think I found something of an answer, I hope you will too.
You can order Hope’s work through your local bookshop or the local bookshop site, which supports local shops. I also have a few copies left if you’d like one signed – please drop me a line.
Hope’s work comes with a study guide for individual or group reflection.
And if you’ve read it, please take a minute or two to leave a review on Goodreads – thank you!
Blurb
In societies like ours, optimism once bordered on a religion. The future seemed bright, and we took refuge from the challenges of the day in a fantasy of tomorrow. Now we face a complex of crises. As the future becomes harder to face, hope is harder to find, but perhaps we have been looking in the wrong places. Perhaps real hope lives not by optimism’s confidence in tomorrow at all, but by a feeling for what is worth living for today.
‘Hope’s Work’ is for anyone struggling to keep faith with hope in this disturbed age. Drawing on testimony, story, and myth, David Gee goes in search of what is worth working for and living towards, whatever the future may bring.
Reviews
These are the reviews that have meant the most to me.
‘This thoughtful book, readable and not too lengthy, is a kind of users’ manual for the would-be (and already) hopeful among us.’
Peggy Seeger, folk musician and activist
‘Stunningly good! Based on myth and real experience, an interesting analysis of As You Like It alongside Palestinian experience, commentary on child soldiers, campaigns for justice and much more. All written in a very accessible, poetic style.’
Helen Meads, activist
‘An original and deeply compassionate example of poetic and spiritual theology that combines poetry, deep erudition and beautifully-rendered story-telling.’
Prof Chris Baker, Goldsmiths University
‘This book is like an oasis. It doesn’t pretend that the road to justice and peace isn’t long and difficult. It does, however, say that hope is possible; that the road to justice may be long but it is tending upwards.’
Steven Waling, activist
‘This small book offers an opportunity for you to face the darkness, meditate on hope and re-kindle the burnt-out activist… Weaving true stories, myth, scripture and metaphor, Gee’s narrative takes us to dark places, yet faith and hope are never obliterated.’
Erica Smith, Peace News
‘I read it to cover to cover without stopping and was engrossed all the way through. There were so many points where I paused, exhaled and read the sentence again and again. This is a powerful, important book.’
Rhianna Louise
‘A beautiful meditation on hope, beginning with a plain acknowledgement of the economic violence in our world which seems to make it impossible. He tells us stories each illustrating how it can be possible to accept the fact of violence and then move through it to find the promise of life.’
Andrew Norman
See Reviews for more.
About the publisher
Publishing, like much else, is increasingly dominated by big businesses. I like Darton, Longman and Todd as a small publisher producing small books on big subjects that big publishers are wary of. By buying their books you’re helping to keep the world of publishing a varied and surprising one.
I am especially grateful to DLT’s David Moloney and Helen Porter for their thoughtful editorial work, and to the designer, Judy Linard, for presenting the book so well.
About the artist
The cover shows Emily Johns’ engraving, Victory Palm, which responds to an episode in the Iraq War. I’m thankful indeed for Emily’s permission to reproduce her work on the book cover. Find out more at https://emilyjohns.org.uk.
Hope's work 