Biology of Collapse is Now Out in Hardcover

As of today, The Biology of Collapse is available in hardcover. The original cover was far too tame, so I replaced it with something suitably depressing.

Remember: hardcovers serve multiple functions in a declining civilization—great doorstops, laptop risers, thermal mass, or winter kindling. The possibilities are endless.

I don’t really like writing books. I like writing essays. And having the freedom to explore a new topic every day. When assembling a book, you are living under the tyranny of trying to fit a bunch of essays into a single theme, or a story with a beginning, middle, and end. I refuse to conform to that, and yet, there is some logic to it. I do write standalone essays, but the essays work with each other like a 3D jigsaw, completing the sculpture from many different angles. Sometimes you don’t know what the sculpture will be until you stand back from it a few metres, while it comes together.

Eventually it tells you what it wants to be. And that’s when you have to shut up, and just do what it tells you.

In the end though, the reader decides what to make of the sculpture. I don’t like putting words in their mouth. That’s not only dictatorial, it does not encourage thinking. The polycrisis requires some strong thinking muscles, and I make sure to give my readers’ brains the workout of their lives – for those who are willing to do this work.

So, we complete this together. Thank you for the hundreds of comments. This book feels like it is still coming together, even though it has been published for 5 months now. And that is why, I prefer books to conversations. Books have full stops. Conversations have pauses, breaths, sounds. They make music.

Enjoy, and thanks so much for all your support – and your input.

George