An eye-opening journey around the UK’s intentional communities, eco-villages and co-living spaces to find more compassionate and sustainable ways to live – from the author of Jailbirds and one of Elle’s '50 Game Changers’.  

Seventy-six per cent of British adults feel that our sense of community has disappeared. We are less likely than our grandparents, or even our parents, to know the names of our neighbours, enjoy multi-generational friendships or share childcare. With mental health at epidemic levels, the climate crisis worsening, the cost of living escalating and society increasingly divided, this game-changing book asks whether there are better ways to live. 

Mim Skinner meets the people who have had the courage to imagine a better world and start living it – in countercultural hippy communes, the disability led L’Arche communities, queer safe spaces, environmental campaign groups, rehab support networks and many more.  

Mixing memories of her own unconventional upbringing with interviews and research into the international history of communalism, she challenges our assumptions as well as her own as she finds multiple options for alternative ways of living – from low-cost co-operative estates to off-grid farm communities and collaborative parenting schemes. 

The result is a much-needed new perspective on our concept of wellness.