All We Want

Building the Life We Cannot Buy

By: Michael Harris

Narrated by: Vijay Mehta

Our lives are defined by a story of endless growth and consumption. Now a climate crisis demands that we change. Can we write new stories?

In All We Want, award-winning author Michael Harris dismantles our untenable consumer culture and delivers surprising, heartwarming alternatives. Drawing on the wisdom of philosophers, scientists, and artists, Harris uncovers three realms where humans have always found deeper meaning: the worlds of Craft, the Sublime, and Care.

Past attempts to blunt our impact on the environment have simply redirected our consumption - we bought fuel-efficient cars and canvas tote bags. We cannot, however, buy our way out of this crisis. We need, instead, compelling new stories about life's purpose.

Part meditation and part manifesto, All We Want is a blazing inquest into the destructive and unfulfilling promise of our consumer society, and a roadmap toward a more humane future.

©2021 Michael Harris (P)2021 Doubleday Canada

Critic reviews

"No writer is as humane, insightful, and clear-eyed as Michael Harris. His journey into the rabbit hole of consumer desire is one we all need to follow, and he makes it a joy along the way." (Susan Orlean, author of The Library Book and The Orchid Thief)

"After first chronicling many of the often-overlooked environmental and personal consequences of our grasping culture, All We Want goes on to propose a solution so humane and original, so possible, that it stands a chance of rescuing both our planet and our small, struggling selves. This is a marvelous, uplifting book, unique among others of its kind." (Barbara Gowdy, author of The White Bone)

"All We Want is a thoughtful examination of consumer desire, but it's much more than that. Harris's storytelling is entertaining, poignant, and totally eye-opening — a search for simple antidotes in our times of planetary emergency." (Charlotte Gill, author of Eating Dirt)