Hello, Stranger cover art

Hello, Stranger

How We Find Connection in a Disconnected World

Preview
Subscribe now Free with 30-day trial
Offer ends on 14 April, 2026 at 23:59.
Prime logo
Pay ₹5/month for 2 months and ₹199/month after 2 months, Cancel anytime. Offer ends on 14 April 2026 at 23:59. Take this offer!
1 credit a month to use on any title to download and keep.
Listen to anything from the Plus Catalogue—thousands of Audible Originals, podcasts and audiobooks.
Download titles to your library and listen offline.
1 credit a month to use on any title to download and keep
Listen to anything from the Plus Catalogue—thousands of Audible Originals, podcasts and audiobooks
Download titles to your library and listen offline
₹199 per month after 30-day trial. Cancel anytime.

Hello, Stranger

Written by: Will Buckingham
Narrated by: Mark Peachey
Subscribe now Free with 30-day trial

Pay ₹5/month for 2 months and ₹199/month after 2 months, Cancel anytime. Offer ends on 14 April 2026 at 23:59.

₹199 per month after 30-day trial. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for ₹607.00

Buy Now for ₹607.00

LIMITED TIME OFFER | Get 2 Months for ₹5/month

About this listen

We navigate our interactions with strangers according to a host of unwritten rules, rituals and (sometimes awkward) attempts at politeness. But what if the people we meet were not a problem, but a gift?

When philosopher and traveller Will Buckingham’s partner died, he sought solace in throwing open the door to new people. Now, as we reflect on our experiences of the pandemic and its enforced separations, and as global migration figures ever more prominently in our collective future, Buckingham brings together insights from philosophy, anthropology, history and literature to explore how our traditions of meeting the other can mitigate the issues of our time. How do we set aside our instinctive xenophobia - fear of outsiders - and embrace our equally natural philoxenia - love of strangers and newness?

Taking in stories of loneliness, exile and friendship from classical times to the modern day and alighting in adapting communities from Myanmar to Birmingham, Hello, Stranger offers an endlessly curious, uplifting and powerful antidote to our increasingly atomised world.

©2021 Will Buckingham (P)2021 W. F. Howes Ltd
Customs & Traditions Social Sciences Sociology World

Critic Reviews

"A glorious book, fabulously learned and funny, and filled with all manner of stirring stories." (Philip Marsden, author of The Summer Isles)

No reviews yet