Montreal Simple Living

Books

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Voluntary Simplicity is not a book about living in poverty; it is a book about living with balance. It illuminates the pattern of changes that an increasing number of Americans are making in their everyday lives--adjustments in day-to-day living that are an active, positive response to the complex dilemmas of our time. By embracing, either partially or totally, the tenets of voluntary simplicity--frugal consumption, ecological awareness, and personal growth--people can change their lives. And in the process, they have the power to change the world.

Stepping Lightly, by Mark Burch

Burch persuasively argues that the individual practice of voluntary simplicity is an essential part of the solution to the overall problem of sustaining human communities and the planet into the distant future. He asserts that one's personal commitment to voluntary simplicity forms the individual and cultural foundation which liberates time, money, and creative energy, allowing for both individual activism and collective problem solving.

In their inspiring and empowering book, an international best seller first published in 1992, they explain their nine-step program that has empowered hundreds of thousands of people all over the world to transform their relationship with money, reorder material priorities, achieve financial independence and live well for less. Joe Dominguez was a successful financial analyst on Wall Street before retiring at the age of 31, never again to accept money for any of his work. Vicki Robin graduated with honors from Brown University and later left a budding career in film and theater in New York.

Traces the history of our increasingly breathless relationship with time, and tackles the consequences and conundrum of living in this accelerated culture of our own creation. Why are we always in such a rush? What is the cure for time-sickness? Is it possible, or even desirable, to slow down? Realizing the price we pay for unrelenting speed, people all over the world are reclaiming their time and slowing down the pace -- and living happier, more productive, and healthier lives as a result. A Slow revolution is taking place

If you care deeply about the world but don't have the time or energy to devote your life to a good cause, this book is for you. This is the definitive guide for the average person wanting to make a positive difference in the world. Our book is specifically designed for well-intentioned people who may be too busy to be actively involved in social change organizations. Our intention is to reach people who normally would not consider themselves activists, people who care about creating a more just and socially responsible world for everyone but don't know where to begin.

Despite an astonishing appetite for life, more and more Americans are feeling overworked and dissatisfied. In the world's most affluent nation, epidemic rates of stress, anxiety, depression, obesity and time urgency are now grudgingly accepted as part of everyday existence -- they signal the American Dream gone awry. Peter Whybrow, Director of the Neuropsychiatric Institute at UCLA, grounds the extraordinary achievements and excessive consumption of the American nation in an understanding of the biology of human craving and the reward system of the brain -- offering for the first time a comprehensive explanation for the addictive mania of consumerism.

Subtitled: A Book for the retired, unemployed and overworked. This book could change your view of the world forever. Ernie Zelinski, "creatively unemployed" for 14 years, believes we work so hard - and overvalue work so much - that we have forgotten how to just live! Sound right to you? Well, just sit back, put your feet up, and take a little break with this, the third edition of Ernie's best-selling practical manual for enjoying life.

A groundbreaking work that goes beyond the books that tell you why to simplify and how to simplify your life. This is the book that tells all -- what has really happened in the lives of real people who have done it. How does simplicity translate in our modern day-to-day world? Can people who embrace this lifestyle sustain it over time? What are the downsides? Is it worth it? Do they miss the "old way?" Pierce spent three years studying people who have simplified their lives -- people living simply in the country, in large cities and everywhere in between.

Thoreau's account of a year spent alone in a cabin by a pond in the woods, is one of the most influential and compelling books in American literature. First published in 1854, Walden has influenced generations of readers and continues to inspire and inform anyone with an open mind and a love of nature. With Bill McKibben providing a newly revised Introduction and helpful annotations that place Thoreau firmly in his role as cultural critic and spirited ser, this beautiful edition of Walden for the new millennium is more accessible and relevant than ever.

A revolution is sweeping America. On its front lines are people fed up with unfulfilling jobs, dysfunctional workplaces, and dead-end careers- men and women who are working for themselves. Meet today's new economic icon—the free agent. And meet your future... the job-hopping, tech-savvy, fulfillment-seeking, self-reliant, independent worker. Already 30 million strong, these new "dis-organization" men and women are transforming America in ways both profound and exhilarating

Radical Simplicity, by Jim Merkel

Jim Merkel is a personal story followed by a detailed prescription. Merkel was a military engineer with a major defense contractor, but couldn't reconcile his job and lifestyle with his personal convictions. So he quit his job and systematically transformed his life to free himself and his family from the possessions that owned him, and the seductive tyranny of wage slavery. He doesn't preach or pontificate, he just describes what led him to make such a momentous change in his life, and how he did it. He then tells you, step-by-step, how you can do it, too. The result is breathtaking and impossible to put down. This is an immensely important and yet unassuming little book.

No Time: Stress and the crisis of modern life, by Heather Menzies

These days we all have too much to do and too little time. No Time is about how technology has changed our lives and what we can do about it. Somewhere between the multi-tasking pace and the sea of data divorced from real life, we’re losing touch with ourselves and with each other. We’re even losing a sense of how to tell when things go wrong and how to take action when they do. We need to take back our lives and renew the humanity of our social institutions. No Time ends on a note of hope by suggesting what we can do to restore balance in our personal lives and to renew a more human scale of time and space in our social environment.

L'ABC de la simplicité volontaire, by Dominique Boisvert

The author is a founding member of the RQSV, Quebec's voluntary simplicity organization. This book, written in French, serves as a great introduction to simple living and provides the coordinates of numerous organizations involved in the movement.
"Depuis quelques années, on parle beaucoup de la simplicité volontaire. Ce courant n’est-il qu’une mode passagère? Ne s’agirait-il pas plutôt d’un véritable mouvement social? Qui sont ceux et celles qui s’y intéressent? Comment peut-on la pratiquer au quotidien? La simplicité volontaire existe-t-elle ailleurs dans le monde? Autant de questions auxquelles ce petit livre cherche à répondre concrètement."

Many of the books above are available from your local library. More are available from the The Simple Living Network

The Réseau Québecois pour la Simplicité Volontaire offers its members a 15% discount on certain books