How To Eat An Elephant
Cut along the dashed lines and pass the cards around the table.
Before we get into it: where did you do most of your reading of this one, and did you find yourself reading it in small bites or in long sittings?
The title asks how you eat an elephant. What is an overwhelming thing in your own life you have been quietly chipping away at, one bite at a time?
Longwell's whole method is sitting in a room and listening to regular people. When was the last time someone really listened to you, and how did that feel afterward?
Which of the voter voices in this book felt most familiar to you, like someone you actually know? You do not have to name names.
The book is more hopeful than a lot of writing on this subject. Did that hopefulness land as comforting, or did any part of you resist it?
Was there a page where you felt your shoulders come down a little, where you thought, okay, this is not hopeless? What was happening on it?
The book argues that a movement gets built out of ordinary, unglamorous conversations. Has reading it changed how you want to handle the next tense conversation with someone you love?
Longwell asks a lot of people to set aside what divides them for something bigger. Without giving away where she lands, how much of that ask felt doable to you, and where did you feel the cost of it?