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“Less is More” is an eye-opening book that goes in detail about the rise, mechanisms and threat of capitalism. As people, governments and corporations continue their business as usual - ploughing through forests, extracting copious amounts of resources and accelerating mindless consumerism, the threat of our civilization’s downfall through the irreversible effects of climate change looms closer. Is it possible to stop it? Perhaps, but it will require for us to move away from the ever-unsustainable ideas of endless growth, Jason Hickel argues and establishes “degrowth” as the new model countries around the world should follow and gives examples of a few already successful transformations. Ideas of equality, healthcare, ecology and post-consumerism, among many others, contribute to “degrowth” and are going to be essential for creating sustainable future. It is not about asceticism, as one may fear, but about flourishing.

I hope this book finds its way to as many people around the world as possible. For me, it destroyed many assumptions I had about how our economy and our relation with the environment works. It highlighted the issues of the ever-present chase for more GDP growth, consumerism and how capitalism often creates and feeds on artificial scarcity to unnecessarily produce and sell more things.

I hope humanity can address all of these issues in this century. However, there is still doubt at the back of my mind. To implement the ideas “Less is More” presents, it basically requires that mythical world peace, in order for countries to stop growing, producing so much military hardware and flexing their muscles on the international stage. And as things stand right now, we’re unfortunately not headed in that direction.

Aoyama goes to an elementary school in a small, but rapidly expanding town, with its back towards a mountainside. Even though he’s just a child, he already made plans on how to become a full-grown adult. He decided, at the age of 5, to never get mad again. He’s always calm, calculating and disciplined, waking earlier than his parents or his sister. He’s busy every day with research projects, writing and sketching in his notebook, exploring the town with his friend Uchida, going to the cafe and the dentists’ office. It is in the dentists’ office that he first met “the lady” – a mysterious woman that eventually becomes a topic of his research, perhaps the most difficult research of his life. That is saying a lot, considering that one day Aoyama, along with his friends who join him later - Uchida and Hamamoto - decide to investigate a mysterious phenomena that started happening in their city recently – penguins and other unusual creatures appearing in random places and a strange object floating in the forest. Will these science kids be able to solve this mystery and learn along the way? Well, I read the book so I already know the ending. I won’t say much but it my opinion it delivers a great, even if open-ended, conclusion to the story.

Once again, Tomohiko Morimi manages to deliver a fantastic light novel that hooks you on since the very beginning. I absolutely love the atmosphere, I could vividly paint the town Aoyama lives in when reading the book, I constantly made elaborate solutions to Aoyama’s problems, I smiled when he and “the lady” talked, and I felt anger whenever the bully Suzuki messed with Aoyama and Uchida. I adore these kids. It could easily become one of my favourite books.

"I made a record in my notebook of how it felt sitting alone at that window, but reading it over now, I don’t feel like it captured those feelings at all. I wasn’t able to reproduce it accurately. I’ve only felt like that once in my entire life. I have learned it is extremely difficult to write proper account of once-in-a-lifetime experiences."

I think this book has a ton of valuable insights into how you can extract value from online services and improve your lifestyle, by setting rules in place about access to "new tech", recalculating if social media really gives you the promised value or have you fallen into its addiction trap, taking walks and getting bored again to boost creativity and many more. Everyone can pick up this book, read it, and start applying at least some of it's rules in everyday life, which I did too, and I think it's amazing.

However, some ideas presented seem to me like more of a hit or miss and a few come from questionable sources, like financial independence communities or religious groups. On top of that, I think social media giants aren't put through rigorous research and blamed enough. They know about what happens with users and choose not to act up on it. If this point was expanded upon more I think the book would have a bigger impact.