Looking back, looking forward

Reflections on 2025, a book announcement, and more.

Dear friends,

This has been a challenging year for many—especially all of us who have been working toward a wiser, healthier, and more just world. But the march of history and of justice continues! It has been a profound privilege to work with so many of you on books that are creating joy, hope, and a renewed sense of possibility in our country and our world.

Looking forward to 2026, we are delighted to announce the pre-order campaign for Dr. Gary Slutkin’s The End of Violence: Eliminating the World’s Most Dangerous Epidemic (Little, Brown and Company, April 21, 2026). Gary’s book offers a profound and innovative paradigm for understanding violence as a disease that must be contained like any potentially lethal pathogen. His book will give you new insight into how we can stop many of our most vexing global challenges, from crime and gang violence on our streets to internecine conflict in Israel/Palestine and Russia/Ukraine. Violence is an age-old lethal problem, and we finally have a new playbook to stop it.

As you know from previous newsletters, we’ve lost several friends and colleagues this year. The past month has marked the deaths of two more, both great scientists who have transformed our understanding of inner worlds and outer space: Paul Ekman and Joel Primack.

Paul was a pioneer in emotions research who helped identify the universal human emotions. We worked with his daughter, Eve Ekman, for 10 years on a book proposal that sold the week of Paul’s death. The Atlas of Emotions is a profound book on emotional inheritance and intergenerational healing—one that will carry on Paul and Eve’s legacy and love. It will be published by Flatiron Books and edited by the extraordinary Julie Will.

Joel, co-author with his wife Nancy Abrams of The View from the Center of the Universe and The New Universe and the Human Future, was one of the creators of the theory of cold dark matter, the foundation of our modern view of the universe. With Nancy, he was constantly trying to help us understand our meaningful and significant place as human beings in a vast and seemingly impersonal universe.

This year, we will be making donations in the name of our authors, colleagues, and friends. To honor the late great Jane Goodall, we’ll be donating to the Jane Goodall Institute, which continues her legacy of conservation and research. InterAct is a nonprofit founded by Aziz Abu Sarah and Maoz Inon—it aims to build peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Their book The Future is Peace, an integral part of the mission, is now available for pre-order; we hope you’ll join their grassroots mission and show that the world is ready for peace in the Holy Land. We will also be giving to the Equal Justice Initiative, founded by our friend and Just Mercy author Bryan Stevenson in his continuing fight to end mass incarceration.

We’re also celebrating the latest news from our community:

• Ethan Kross’s Shift and Sunita Sah’s Defy both appeared on Amazon’s Best Books of the Year list

• Defy also appeared on Bloomberg’s list of the Books Business Leaders Couldn’t Put Down in 2025

• Suzanne Simard was discussed on this season of the Telepathy Tapes

• Lisa Miller talked about the science of spirituality on the Gathering Room

• Doug talked about Jane Goodall’s legacy of hope on USA Today’s The Excerpt

Scientific American also ran a feature on the Big Joy Project (find it online or in the November issue). The Joy Dialogues between the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu have already sparked many gifts for the world, including the international bestseller The Book of Joy and Mission: Joy the movie, one of Netflix’s highest-rated films. The Big Joy Project is a citizen science project founded by the documentary’s producers, along with Dr. Elisa Epel, and now supported by UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Institute. The article shares the finding that small, daily act—from making a gratitude list to listening to a clip of someone else’s laughter—can create joy and improve one’s sense of well-being. Read up on the science, or get direct access to the exercises here.

No matter how daunting the world may seem, as Arch said, “The quality of human life on our planet is nothing more than the sum total of our daily interactions with one another.”

Happy Holidays, and looking forward to joining forces in the year ahead for the benefit of all.

Doug, Alyssa, Elizabeth, Jordan, Kelly, Rebecca, Sarah, Sascha, Shannon & Wenonah