i eat the stars – Book Review

If you were to enter a bookshop and look at the books on a shelf in front of you and saw the cover of a book with a colourful array of suns, moons, stars, and an extraterrestrial looking person kneeling amongst a field of toadstools with a third eye looking at you and you then read the title - i eat the stars - what would you think the content of that book to be?

You might think it was a book of magic spells and potions, or perhaps a book of mysticism.

Do not be fooled or deceived. This book, written by best-selling author sarah wilson,¹ is firmly grounded in the earth and the Earth. If you pick the book up, you will read the subtitle: how to live fully and beautifully in a collapsing world. There it is. This is a book about collapse in all its variations – social, environmental, personal, political, and relational.

Heavy stuff! Heavier than the cover might otherwise suggest. However, if you get enough courage and curiosity to purchase and read this remarkable book you will find a lightness that belies the depths to which collapse could take us. But, be warned. This book does cover some pretty horrible and painful realities. Wilson recognises this and on the very first page warns the reader that collapse ‘requires facing a bunch of brutal truths that perhaps you’ve been avoiding – for very fair reason. So (the book) may not be for you right now.’

If you bypass the warning and have the courage to face the “brutal truths” and read on you will be glad you did.

The title of the book comes from the opening lines of a poem (A Responsibility to Awe) by Canadian astronomer/poet Rebecca Elson:

‘Sometimes as an antidote

To fear of death,

I eat the stars.’

 

The theme of death pervades this book, both our personal death, and moreso, the possible death of the human species, or at least, the collapse of the human project as we have come to know it.

Another theme of the book, alluded to in the title of Elson’s poem, is that of awe. The paradox of a book with themes of death and awe might be jolting and this is because collapse is exactly that. Collapse thrusts us into paradoxes, contradictions, juxtapositions, and chaos often, and sarah wilson writes in a manner that acknowledges this. She declares early on that she has not written in a linear fashion and has presented information and her ideas in an emergent fashion.

Yet it works. The book does not read as if it were a disjointed collection of random thoughts. Everything connects, as every phenomenon in the world does. Sarah Wilson’s writing is a pleasure to read because it dispenses with a linear, Cartesian approach. The writing is joyful, painful, disrupting, discordant, heart-warming, harsh, and delightful; sometimes skipping from one to the next in succeeding paragraphs.

Be warned though. It is not hopeful. At least, not in the way hope is often thought of. She addresses this in the very first chapter. For many years sarah wilson was a climate activist and, she remarks, ‘I preached hope.’ Nowadays, and in this book, instead of hope, sarah wilson seeks truth – ‘a far more solid and enlivening thing to peg a life to’ she avers. She elaborates; ‘I continue to think there is something positive to fight for, to reach for. But hope is no longer the destination.’

Freeing herself from hope, sarah wilson does not fall into the dishonest (in this reviewer’s opinion) trap of offering a bright final chapter that proclaims “but we will solve this,” as so many authors writing of climate and environmental collapse are wont to do. This is refreshing, and much more in keeping with her desire to reach for truth and honesty.

That is a big step. It is a step that sarah wilson has taken openly and truthfully and the reader of her book is invited to take this step with her. She does not shy from telling the truth. There is enough information and data contained in this book to keep a doomsayer happy (or depressed.) I should note that sarah wilson is not a doomsayer. It is clear, however, that we are entering collapse (with some parts of the world already fully immersed in it.)

Wilson’s objective in the book is to contribute some ideas about how to live in this time of collapse. She does not present fixes or solutions, and this is deliberate. The mindset of fixes and solutions is complicit in bringing us to the point of collapse.

Although she does not offer fixes or solutions, sarah wilson counsels that we do not need to sit back in despair. We do not need to throw up our hands in resignation. She offers what she calls “actionables.” For example, sufficiency, which she says, is gaining momentum in Europe as both a mindset and as policy initiatives. As the old Frank Sinatra song goes, sarah wilson reminds us that the best things in life are free. These and other actions can be carried out at any time she claims, not just because of collapse.

If these “actionables” do not grab you, sarah wilson advises going into nature. ‘Nature (she comments) never strays from the true rhythm of life; it doesn’t get distracted, it doesn’t attach itself to things. It is forever attuned… We only have to be in it and our nature remembers how we are meant to be in the world.’ Wise advice indeed.

Early in the book sarah wilson tells us that she seeks truth. After more than 200 pages of reflections, thoughts, and ideas arising from considering collapse and how to negotiate it, she arrives at that truth.

‘Who we are is love’ she proclaims. Yes, it’s as simple as this.

Love is the antidote to the ‘chasm of loss’ and the sense of groundlessness that collapse can engender in us. As the years, and decades, go by collapse can take us further and further into that chasm. There is no way out.

There is truth however, and that truth is love. Wilson admits that for her, ‘Extraordinarily it’s taken collapse to land me at this damn truth!’

Come to think of it, maybe this is a book of magic spells and potions. It just takes collapse for us to notice them.

This is one of the most beautiful, painfully honest, and brutally truthful books to come out of the collapse genre. If you want to understand how one person lives fully and beautifully in a collapsing world, read it! Then, do it!

Notes

1. sarah wilson, i eat the stars, Penguin Books, various locations, 2026. The author, sarah wilson, prefers to write her name in lower case. I respect this and so (apart from when her name begins a sentence) throughout this review I write her name in lower case.