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The Art of Belonging

The Art of Belonging

by Hugh Mackay
Paperback
Publication Date: 30/09/2014

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$32.99

Bestselling author Hugh Mackay is a social researcher and novelist who has made a lifelong study of the attitudes and behavior of millions of Australians. In his new book The Art of Belonging Mackay advances his argument put forward in his previous book, The Good Life on life’s most enduring question, “What makes a life worth living? His conclusion, drawn from over 40 years of thorough research is provocative and passionately argued.

The Art of Belonging is the book that reignites the conversation on what we think of ourselves, the pursuit of happiness, fearing sadness and failure and excepting that happiness is not what we need to equip us for The Good life. Embrace all our emotions and understand what they can teach us and how they can make us become better human beings.

Drawing on 50 years' experience as a social researcher, Mackay creates a fictional suburb, Southwood, and populates it with characters who - like most of us - struggle to reconcile their need to belong with their desire to live life on their own terms. He chronicles the numerous human interactions and inevitable conflicts that arise in a community when characters assert their own needs at the expense of others. Through a series of riveting, interconnected stories, Mackay reveals the beautiful symmetry of the human condition: we need communities, but communities also need us. His book is a quiet but persuasive entreaty to readers to take responsibility for the places where they live by engaging, volunteering, joining up and joining in. The Art of Belonging is the book that will reignite the conversation about how we want to live; it will provide the framework for those who argue for a particular vision of community, one that sustains, protects and nurtures the many, and not just the few.

Hugh Mackay is a social researcher and the author of fourteen books – nine in the field of social psychology and ethics, and five novels. His latest book, The Good Life, came out in May 2013, and his sixth novel, Infidelity, was also published in 2013. The Art of Belonging is due out in October 2014. 

ISBN:
9781742614250
9781742614250
Category:
Cultural studies
Format:
Paperback
Publication Date:
30-09-2014
Publisher:
Pan Macmillan Australia
Country of origin:
Australia
Pages:
304
Dimensions (mm):
231x155x24mm
Weight:
0.42kg
Hugh Mackay

Hugh Mackay is a prolific and well-known social researcher, writer and commentator in Australia. Hugh was a newspaper columnist for over 25 years, and is now an honorary professor of social science at the University of Wollongong.

He is the author of nine books in the field of social psychology and philosophy, and five novels. Previous books include Why Don't People Listen?, Reinventing Australia and What Makes Us Tick?.

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