As we prepare to receive Cohorts 6&7 into the Lab next week, I have been revisiting and updating our reading list.
This year I’ve added four books:
- Ways of Being by James Bridle,
- The World Beyond Your Head by Matthew Crawford,
- The Tormentor by Philippe Gaulier and
- Why is that Funny by John Wright.
Some of these I read a while ago, one I am still reading, but I’m including them to make explicit something that has been strengthening in the Lab: the role of play, attention and emergence.
Not just in how we facilitate. But in how we design. And how we show up.
Regenerative design isn’t just about feedback loops and systems levers. It is also about attention, tuning in, humility and sensing the audience — whether that’s a client, a colleague, a community or an ecosystem.
Of all the established books on the reading list, one remains an old friend: the Dictionary of Lean Logic.
It is a whole world imagined of living within ecological limits. It is where I return to for grounding and new challenge.
Updating the list each year feels like a good spring ritual.
Regenerative practice is a vast field and this list represents just my intellectual journey, and not the whole cannon. I’d love to carry on widening this list, and I welcome recommendations… but as I am very slow reader (it only seems to go in if I write things down)… it may take me a while to get to them.