Meeting #7 - Tuesday, February 17, 2026

"You hear this fifty times a day. You can turn on the radio or the television and hear it every hour. Man is conquering the deserts, man is conquering the oceans, man is conquering the atom, man is conquering the elements, man is conquering outer space...The mythology of your culture hums in your ears so constantly that no one pays the slightest bit of attention to it. Of course, man is conquering space and the atom and the deserts and the oceans and the elements. According to your mythology, this is what he was born to do."

The Wild Gentleman Book Club

At our January TWG Book Club meeting, after discussing Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, we started talking about which book to read next. Ari, a regular at the monthly meetings, made an impassioned case for reading Ishmael.

Most of us had never heard of the book, which, as we decided once we met in February, is best described simply as, "what a man in search of a teacher learns about our world and culture revealed by a giant, telepathic gorilla." As someone added, "Better not go any deeper than that."

But we did, and it was a fascinating conversation. I never shared the reading guide for our February meeting, so I wanted to make sure to share it here.

You can also get a printable version of this reading guide here: Printable Reading Guide.

Ishmael Meeting Details

We met on Tuesday, February 17, 2026, at Paddy's Public House in Newton.

We have our next The Wild Gentleman Book Club meeting this Wednesday, March 18, at 6 PM at Paddy's Public House in West Newton. We will be talking about George Saunders's recent book, Vigil. This is a short novel that can be read in a day or two; it's also a good listen on Spotify or Audible. Even if you don't read it, come for community and good conversation.

If you'd like to join us, you can find all the information here: The Wild Gentleman Book Club - Meeting #8.

How Ishmael Can Guide Men in 2026

Ishmael is formatted in dialogue style — like getting back into your Plato — and explores the stories we have told (and continue to tell) ourselves about civilization, progress, and what it means to be human. At the book club, we dug into how the book uncovered new ways of looking at our place in the world and how we accept "received" wisdom about success, growth, and masculinity without challenging it.

At this stage of life, many of us are reassessing our relationship to work, achievement, and legacy. Through this story, Quinn boldly shocks us out of our complacent acceptance of some of the foundational stories of humankind and implores us to examine the cultural mythology we've been living by. The aftereffects of confronting these significant world and societal norms can be felt as we question what we will leave behind as men, especially as we age.

This is a book isn't for everyone. It earns its weight through philosophy rather than plot. For some of us, it was revelatory, but a quick scan of online reviews reveals others find it simplistic or preachy.

At the end of the day, you don't need to agree with all the arguments Quinn makes, but the framework he reveals can help you think more clearly about the life you're living and what you will leave behind.

Our cultural story — that humans are the pinnacle of creation, meant to conquer and subdue the earth — is not a universal truth but one mythology among many. And it's a mythology that's destroying both us and the planet.

We're not doomed by human nature, but by a specific cultural story that began roughly 10,000 years ago with agriculture. Change the story, change the outcome.