April was another busy month full of home improvement projects and events with friends. My cycling club also started rides again, so I was very busy doing things other than reading. I managed to complete the book for book club, and I started another that I hope to finish sometime in May.
Click here to see the other books I’ve read so far this year.
My rating system:
- 5: I enjoyed it and I’d read this again.
- 4: It was a good story written well, but not my taste. Or, it was a great story, maybe just not written well.
- 3: I am not a fan of the story/writing style/themes.
- 2: This a pretty painful to get through.
- 1: There is nothing good to say about this book.
Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass
Synopsis: As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowledge together to take us on “a journey that is every bit as mythic as it is scientific, as sacred as it is historical, as clever as it is wise” (Elizabeth Gilbert).
Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, and as a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings–asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass–offer us gifts and lessons, even if we’ve forgotten how to hear their voices. In reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings will we be capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learn to give our own gifts in return.
My Rating: 5/5
This book was the perfect read for spring. I started out reading it from the library, but I ended up buying my own copy because I enjoyed it so much. I loved the stylistic, descriptive way Kimmerer writes; you feel like you are right there with her, crunching on leaves in a forest floor or slopping through the muck of a swamp. This book gave me some inspiration for planning our garden at our new house. I wanted to focus entirely on planting native plants, especially ones that attract pollinators. One person in our book club was inspired to create a Three Sisters garden with beans, corn, and squash. The stories in this book are a little preachy, but they do get you thinking about your relationship with the plants around you, and I think that’s what the author intended, anyways.
Words From the Riverbed 