Books We Talk About When We Talk About Books:

One City: A Declaration of Interdependence

by Ethan Nichtern

Wisdom Publications

http://theidproject.com

Paperback 15.95   

If you haven’t yet encountered Ethan Nichtern’s One City: A Declaration of Interdependence, buy a copy and read it immediately. One City is destined to be one of those books you’ll talk about, turn over in your mind, and contemplate for years. Nichtern appeal to readers to try his simple experiment: to walk around for a day (or the rest of your life) in conscious awareness of “the real Internet” — the global interconnectedness within which we all live and breathe, and without which we wouldn’t. Composed by a longtime mindfulness junkie with a brain the size of New York City, the wisdom here packs a wallop. As does the wit. Far more than the musings of an uneasy activist, Nichtern’s studies of Buddhism (he’s a student of Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche) give his analyses both grace and grit. 

I had the good fortune to meet Ethan Nichtern, founder and executive director of The Interdependence Project, a non-profit grassroots organization based in NYC’s East Village. (The ID Project offers classes, workshops, arts events, as well as events centered around community service and responsible consumption.) Attending his book talk at Nalanda West in Seattle, Washington, I happily shook this man’s hand after he spoke with disarming logic and self-deprecating humor about the daily fact of our interdependence. The reality, not theory, that we absolutely depend on everything and everyone else on the planet for our very existence. I thanked Ethan out of a deep appreciation for his easeful, lucid teaching style, and I thanked the Web of Existence for bringing itself to our attention as One City, via Ethan’s book.

I sincerely hope you’ll read One City. But more than that, I hope you’ll talk about it to the people you know and care about. Because One City is one of those books that bears repeating. You can see and hear Ethan talk about his breakout book on his blog, or to talk to him directly (tell him what you think about the book and otherwise support the cause of interdependent awareness) check out http://theidproject.com.