What our RSA Fellows and staff are reading

Reading time

Five minutes

Intertwined: Women, Nature and Climate Justice

Book author: Rebecca Kormos
Reviewed by Rebecca Purton

This debut book is a research-rich and genuinely global exploration of the relationship between gender inclusion and environmental challenges. Through stats interlaced with oral retellings from women working in key roles in community and sustainability, Kormos explores not only pervading climate issues, but also successful programmes and initiatives, allowing her to demonstrate the crucial role women have played in caring for the climate throughout history.

The data Kormos shares demonstrates how inequalities and polycrises intersect, with the relationship between climate issues and gender exclusion and violence being complex and interwoven. Women are disproportionately affected by climate change and simultaneously excluded from and underrepresented in decision-making about the future of the planet. Kormos argues that the global empowerment of women is the single most significant factor that could positively impact climate change.

Kormos doesn’t shy away from the seriousness of climate crises, but still concludes with authentic hope and optimism rooted in her firm belief in women’s resilience, determination and community-focused work towards enabling a flourishing planet for the benefit of all.

Rebecca Purton is Evaluation Manager at the RSA.

Filterworld: How Algorithms Flattened Culture

Book author: Kyle Chayka
Reviewed by Victoria Kinkaid, FRSA

This book offers a fascinating insight into the algorithms shaping our culture. ‘Filterworld’ is Chayka’s term for the “vast, interlocking and yet diffuse network of algorithms that influence our lives today” and how these impact what we buy, listen to and watch.

Chayka provides fascinating insight into the development of algorithms and their knock-on effect. His reader-friendly language and descriptions engrossed me; I was shocked to realise how much I have internalised and accepted algorithmic culture. The author gives examples of how we make choices based on algorithms and how creators shape content and products around them, concluding that, “the algorithm always wins”.

Sadly, I can also see the impact on our culture. This book is an eye-opening glimpse into the “Frankenstein-esque power” algorithms have and how they have infiltrated every aspect of our lives, whether we know it or not. It was a stark reminder to me to aspire to be a more responsible consumer the next time I pick up a device.

If you are curious to know more about ‘algorithmic anxiety’, ‘BookTok’ and ‘Instagrammy aesthetics’, then this book is for you!

Victoria Kinkaid is an army doctor and a co-founder of The FGM Education Project.

Tickling Sharks

Book author: John Elkington, FRSA
Reviewed by Phillip Ward

I have tickled trout and swum with sharks but, unlike the author, I have resisted combining the two activities.

This book offers an autobiographical account of Elkington’s journey through some of the landmarks of sustainable development. It will appeal particularly to readers like me who have been around sustainability for a long time and enjoy discovering the personal and intellectual connections that have driven the movement.

The heart of the book is a statement of the author’s continuing commitment to challenging businesses to face up to the growing crises of climate change. He segments businesses into four groups according to the risk they pose and their potential as partners: sea lions, dolphins and orcas are potential partners, and low risk to the environment. Sharks — such as the fossil fuel industry — are high risk and very difficult to work with, needing to be approached with great care and “tickled” if they are to be engaged.

The book comes with substantial forewords from The Earthshot Prize CEO Hannah Jones and Volans CEO Louise Kjellerup Roper, an afterword from Eden Project founder Tim Smit and, most valuably for me, a coda from the author summarising the 10 key lessons he has learned and his manifesto for his continuing pursuit of the sharks.

Phillip Ward is leader of the RSA Sustainability Network.

The Self-Awareness Superhighway: Charting your Leadership Journey

Book author: Nia D Thomas, FRSA
Reviewed by Ed Rochead, FRSA

Building on lessons from the author’s successful podcast, this book lays out a clear guide for leaders to follow on their professional journeys.
After illustrating the author’s personal model of leadership and making it clear that the techniques described are aimed at leaders in formal hierarchies, as well as in other contexts, the main message of the book emerges in the second part, with the chapter titled ‘The Self-Awareness Compass’. The compass consists of nine points: care; humility; authenticity; reflection; trust; adaptability; behaviour; listening and experience. After defining each of these, Thomas sets out how an individual can develop these skills and highlights the potential roadblocks and hazards they may encounter.

The final part of the book suggests a range of techniques (such as journaling and seeking feedback) to help implement its lessons. This is a readable guide that would assist any leader wishing to develop their effectiveness, especially if used in conjunction with the podcast and online resources. I was impressed by the practicality of the advice the author provides and I will be recommending this book to many of my mentees and peers.

Ed Rochead is a senior leader in the public sector and Visiting Professor of Innovation Strategy at Loughborough University.

The Body Farm: Stories

Book author: Abby Geni
Reviewed by Anna Markland

This generous collection of 11 modern-day short stories is best approached as a kaleidoscope.

If, like the protagonist of ‘Porcupines in Trees’, you view nature with the same scepticism as “unpleasant abstract art at MoMA”, then I invite you to notice how each story evokes the glorious bounty of the planet. Twist another way to focus on the frailty of the human animal, like the old man in ‘Childish’ carefully crafting a final present for his wife, or the woman in ‘Petrichor’ slowly being let down by her senses. Turn again, catching how each story brims with love and family: in ‘The Rapture of the Deep’, siblings have very different ways of honouring the legacy of their mother, while the titular ‘The Body Farm’, the darkest in this collection, asks what lines are okay to cross to protect your loved ones.

My favourite story combines all these elements. In ‘The First Rule of Natalie’, the reality of acute learning disabilities contrasts with the hope of the selkie myth, and ultimately — as with the best short stories — the ending is for you to decide.

Written with warmth, wit and wonder, these tales are definitely ones to keep revisiting.

Anna Markland is the RSA’s Head of Innovation and Change.

Making Sense of Chaos: A Better Economics for a Better World

Book author: J Doyne Farmer
Reviewed by Jolyon Miles-Wilson

In June, I was lucky enough to bag myself a seat in The Great Room at RSA House to hear J Doyne Farmer discuss his work with our Interim Director of Research Oliver Burrows. After an hour of stimulating discourse, I knew I had to read this book.

There’s always something pleasing about a fresh perspective, and something even more pleasing about a fresh perspective that challenges predominant paradigms and causes a bit of a ruckus. In his new book, Farmer delivers this fresh approach (ruckus and all) to some of our most pressing challenges: climate change; automation; and health, to name a few. He presents an alternative strategy for understanding these issues — all ultimately economic in nature, but which traditional economics falls short of fully addressing. Complexity science, we learn, may be the key to better understanding our complicated, social and chaotic world.

As much entertaining as educational, Making Sense of Chaos provides an accessible insight into the world of complex systems, as well as reflecting Farmer’s captivating and multifarious career. A must-read for the modern change-maker.

Jolyon Miles-Wilson is Senior Quantitative Researcher at the RSA.