When Prison Feels Like Home: Lessons from The Lonely Century

Hi, it’s Diana from Healthy Seniors, and I’m continuing my series on books I’ve read and enjoyed. Last time I wrote about The Well-Lived Life by Dr. Gladys McGarey, the surgeon who lived to 103.

I’ve written about Noreena Hertz’s The Lonely Century: How to Restore Human Connection in a World That’s Pulling Apart before, but writing this in mid-February, right after Valentine’s Day, it feels especially relevant to revisit. The book has been sitting with me for months now, and certain passages keep coming back to me, especially around holidays that highlight connection and loneliness.

Valentine’s Day just passed, and while some of us spent it with loved ones, the holiday has a way of highlighting what’s missing. According to recent research, about 23% of adults have negative feelings about the holiday. Fifteen million American adults say it impacts their mental health for the worse.

But Hertz’s book argues that our loneliness problem runs far deeper than one day on the calendar. And once y…