How to Love a Beautiful, Broken World

New York Times bestselling author Margaret Renkl shared these words in a 2023 speech to graduates at the University of the South in Sewanee. Preparing her remarks, she wondered what counsel she could possibly offer young people entering a world that looks incalculably different from the one she entered after college. She wondered, too, why this audience should trust her, when her generation is the one that wrecked so much of what should be precious. 

Instead of offering advice for success, Renkl decided to pass along the most important truth she has learned from simply living in the world: how to survive despair, one glimmer of light at a time.

In this short book, she expands on her speech, drawing on her work as a teacher, journalist, author, and backyard naturalist to provide both inspiration and grounded guidance to anyone searching for hope in a troubled world. Yes, we are at a moment of great peril—to the earth, to democracy, to respect for human dignity. But, Renkl argues, realism and hope are not opposing views. All change begins with finding something to fight for and reasons to keep fighting. The living world, she reminds us, is still beautiful and redeemable—no matter how broken it might seem.