The Guide to Becoming Alive is a book written out of necessity. One August afternoon, Richard Christiansen sat in the goat shed at Flamingo Estate and began writing the book he himself needed to read. Not a book about living a good life, but about living a great one. About finding joy, purpose and clarity. About climbing out of mediocrity and into something vivid, meaningful and fully alive.

Six hundred pages later, it became the most personal and ambitious project he has ever created. Part manifesto, part memoir, The Guide to Becoming Alive blends lessons from the garden with deeply candid conversations with the people who’ve shaped him. Voices like Jane Goodall, Martha Stewart, Jane Fonda, Alice Waters, Kelly Wearstler, Chrissy Teigen and John Legend share their insights on how to work, love, grow, fail, rebuild and find beauty in chaos.

This is a book about living deliberately. About tuning in instead of tuning out. It moves through work ethic, sex, food, design, technology, politics, nature and the simple rituals that make a life feel like your own. Filled with striking imagery and sentences that stay with you, it offers a roadmap for anyone who feels the world moving too fast and wants to return to something real.

This is Flamingo Estate in book form. Honest. Bold. Beautiful. A guide for those who want to feel more alive.