The Good-Enough Life

“A Financial Times FT Critics’ Book of the Year”“A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year”“This book found me at just the right time… . [The Good-Enough Life] offers a bit of an antidote or a countercultural approach to designing communities and systems… [It’s a] philosophical, semi-political, pro-social, contemplative approach to designing a new way forward.”—Alyson Stoner, New York Magazine”[Alpert’s] vision of a good-enough world is energizing.”—Lily Meyer, The Atlantic“The Good-Enough Life leaves no meritocracy standing… . [A] jolt of reorientation.”—Emily Ogden, Los Angeles Review of Books“

[W]e should bestow social recognition … .on common moral qualities, not on uncommon talent. It should be good enough just to be good enough … . [This is] Alpert’s case, and he makes it well.

Avram Alpert is a writer and teacher. He has worked at Princeton and Rutgers Universities, and is currently a research fellow at the New Institute in Hamburg. His books include A Partial Enlightenment: What Modern Literature and Buddhism Can Teach Us about Living Well without Perfection. His work has appeared in publications such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Aeon.