// Kite Surfers//

// Book Review: The Latest from Shareable ‘Share or Die’//

Book:  Share or Die: Voices of the Get Lost Generation in the Age of Crisis

Editor: Malcolm Harris with Neal Gorenflo

Share or Die offers readers a collection of personal narratives, how-to’s and editorial cartoons submitted by the readership of the Shareable Magazine, a non-profit online magazine about sharing. Neal Goranflo, the co-founder and publisher, invited the P2P community to tell their own story on the topic of sharing as American 20-somethings explore their current economic condition. Malcolm Harris, the co-editor, speaks of 
the irony of the most connected generation being labeled “the lost generation”. He touches upon the new ways Gen-Y is sharing including cooperatives and networks of collaborative consumption for which access trumps ownership.

As one turns the pages, the Gen-Y writers express a realization that the world has changed offering examples depicting the disappearance of employment security in the new socially connected world. The tone varies as the writers range from melancholy to inspirational stories through unseen paths as they reveal how the Digital Age, intentionally or not, has shaped their circumstances. Share or Die suggests that the system is broken thus requiring us to embrace a new reality. Alternately, readers are made aware of the change agents who create unique opportunities that foster new outcomes. The book moves through various emotions and forms of sharing including housing and food, and touches upon the importance of local supply to ensure sustainability. It offers additional sharing examples within communities and ways members have adopted a new framework whereby one act by an individual propagates future benefits for others. This new economy is based on collaboration instead of competition.

The book navigates readers through an extensive list of peer-to-peer models including volunteerism, the power of local, collaboration across the globe and crowdfunding. The story of a Detroit neighborhood where Michael Covington is inspiring: a laid off environmental engineer, having moved back to his family home, seeking to hedge local dumping by creating a neighborhood garden. The evolution of the Georgia St. Community Collective is revealed as a selfless effort spun off a DIY community movement. 

In subsequent chapters, the main characters demonstrated that by moving beyond their comfort zone and testing new methods, the solutions began to appear. This was particularly true in the case of Adrianna Davalos’ “Stranger Dinners” and Venessa Miemis’ “Emergent by Design”. The book offers an excellent prospective of real life experiences that we are all familiar with, but rarely discuss with our immediate social circles.  

To purchase Share or Die, or to enter the Share or Die Storytelling Contest, go here .

// Lands End//