Living Through Historical Transformation
Spring 2026 Reading Selection for Not Another Book Club
While I’m working on the write-up of the most recent book club discussion, I wanted to share the books I have selected for the first few months of 2026. I’m so looking forward to being transported through time and place by these works, and discussing with you what we find in them that may help us to make sense of our here and now.
It’s hard to ignore the sense that we’re living through a significant moment. AI is reshaping how we work and think. Populist movements are challenging established political orders. The international frameworks we’ve relied upon seem increasingly fragile. Economic contradictions deepen. Demographics shift beneath our feet. Across many dimensions, we appear to be at a moment of historical importance.
When the ground shifts beneath us, it helps to learn from others who’ve navigated similar territory. Our Spring 2026 selection of books explores three distinct experiences of living through huge change: a Nigerian community encountering the collision of worlds in the 1890s, four Chinese women coming of age during decades of breathtaking transformation, and Gandhi’s experiments with truth during India’s independence struggle. Each offers wisdom about maintaining agency and meaning when history accelerates around us.
I hope you’ll join me in seeking perspectives from these books that may help us make sense of the changes currently afoot:
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe - Tuesday 13th January 2026, 8pm UK time
Private Revolutions: Coming of Age in a New China by Yuan Yang - Tuesday 17th February 2026, 8pm UK time
The Story of My Experiments with Truth by Mahatma Gandhi - Tuesday 24th March 2026, 8pm UK time
→ Sign up for our discussions here
(You’ll receive suggestions for additional resources when you register for each discussion)
If you’re interested, here is a guide to ethical consumption of books.
Wishing you a thoughtful close to 2025, and looking forward to exploring these remarkable books together in the new year.
Richard @ Not Another Book Club
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/6103/things-fall-apart-by-chinua-achebe/
Achebe’s masterpiece shows us what happens when transformation arrives uninvited. Set in pre-colonial Nigeria, it chronicles how Okonkwo’s Igbo community encounters British colonialism—not as background history, but as lived experience of a world coming apart. This is transformation imposed from outside, revealing how communities respond when familiar structures collapse and new orders demand accommodation. What does it take to preserve dignity and identity when the ground shifts this dramatically?
Watch: Achebe Discusses Africa 50 Years After ‘Things Fall Apart’ - PBS NewsHour (8 min)
Read: Proverbs in Things Fall Apart - Republic Magazine (~5 min)
Private Revolutions: Coming of Age in a New China by Yuan Yang
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/private-revolutions-9781526641951/
Yang follows four Chinese women navigating forty years of breathtaking transformation—from the Cultural Revolution’s aftermath through China’s economic miracle and into today’s uncertainties. Through intimate access to their diaries and lives, we see how massive systemic change plays out in individual choices about education, work, relationships, and identity. This is transformation experienced from within: how do ordinary people maintain agency and meaning when society transforms around them faster than they can process?
Listen: Yuan Yang Explores the New China - Standard Issue Podcast (22 min)
Read: Delving into the Inner Lives of Women in Neoliberal China - The Conversation (~8 min)
The Story of My Experiments with Truth by Mahatma Gandhi
https://www.gandhiheritageportal.org/mahatma-gandhi-books/the-story-of-my-experiments-with-truth
Gandhi’s autobiography reveals transformation as deliberate practice. Written as “experiments with truth,” it shows how one person systematically tested principles of non-violence, simplicity, and authentic living during India’s independence struggle. This is transformation as conscious choice: what happens when someone decides to become an instrument of change rather than merely responding to it? Gandhi offers a manual for personal integrity during collective upheaval—perhaps exactly what we need when navigating our own historical moment.
Read: Reading Gandhi Reading - Los Angeles Review of Books (~12 min)