Book
Bothering the World, Part 1
The first part of a global perspective series on conflict, responsibility, and the future of civil society.
Book Summary
Part 1 begins with another Tuesday letter, this time from the Brussels Forum on Democratic Dialogue, and sends Alistair and Margaret into an international sequence of rooms and conversations. The book holds its global scale through close character attention rather than abstract geopolitics.
Chapters move through Brussels, the river conversation with Sergei, Jordanian and Lebanese perspectives, Janet's and Margaret's Nigeria chapters, then onward to Washington and Ohio. Each stop tests the same question in different contexts: what still holds when trust thins and institutions strain.
The return to Hertfordshire is deliberately quiet: tea, difficult family questions, and Margaret's painting reaching version twenty-eight. The ending refuses triumph and lands on continuation: they are still here, and the practice continues.