Book Review: The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times

The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times, by Douglas Carlton Abrams and Jane Goodall

I am going to begin this review with a thought about Jane Goodall. I was in junior high school when the movie, Gorillas in the Midst, hit the theaters (in 1988). I loved the story and was and continue to be inspired by Jane Goodall.

I was not inspired not comforted with this book. Honestly, I’m not sure that the writing of this book brought much hope to the co-author, Douglas Carlton Abrams.

Empty is what I kept thinking and feeling as I was reading–right in the middle of the 2022 Russian Invasion of Ukraine. And even as troops disperse, and more hard facts come out about what is happening… I feel like she was giving us her wish list for a utopia that does not exist.

Her main 4 ideas need everyone one board with a better world. No selfishness, no greed. And when the topic is brought up that could possibly move us beyond our selfishness, if she believed in a higher being. Mrs. Goodall says yes, and then she waters that down with also believing in reincarnation. And that seems like a bit more luck of the draw…. not hope.

I’m not denying that I do not think her ideas and thoughts are not good. They are, but they are just ideas, thoughts. If I read the news–even small town, local news, and have a general pulse of what is happening within my own county, country, the world, her words would not be enough to bring me real hope for the future… it felt like a book of wishful thinking.