Like Border, To the Lake is at first blush a travelogue, with frequent forays into history, but closer inspection reveals it to be an essayistic meditation on the different experiences provoked by natural versus political boundaries. "As we've learned," says Kimmerer, who is 69, "there are lots of us who think this way." There's a certain kind of writing about ecology and balance that can make the natural world seem like this. But then: My eyes drifted to a sentence on the page opposite where nothing was underlined, and I thought, Now heres something really interesting, how come this didnt attract your attention all those years ago.. But she is equally adamant that students have things to give to the institutions where they spend so much of their lives. Heres what I turned in. Both are in need of healingand both science and stories can be part of that cultural shift from exploitation to reciprocity. But, reading, I sometimes found myself adrift. She holds a BS in Botany from SUNY ESF, an MS and PhD in Botany from the University of Wisconsin and is the author of numerous scientific papers on plant ecology, bryophyte ecology, traditional knowledge and restoration ecology. Almost 1500 pages of easy reading pleasure that I look on with affection (perhaps more than when I first finished it) rather than love. Yes, its true, Kimmerer offers examples, not least in a chapter in which her students brainstorm ways each of them can give back to the swamp theyve been on a research field trip to. Moving between 1938 and 1956, it finds Bernie Guenther on the run and reminded of an old case in which he was dragooned into finding out who shot a flunky on the balcony of Hitlers retreat at Bechtesgaden. My husband challenged the other day. But those same cultures insist that gifts arent free: they come attached with responsibilities. Thanks to all my readers. I try to go into the woods every day, she says. Priceless. (Kluger was one of the first to insist that the experience of the Holocaust was thoroughly gendered.) One chapter is devoted to the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address, a formal expression of gratitude for the roles played by all living and non-living entities in maintaining a habitable environment. Shes just a great character. Intimacy gives us a different way of seeing, when visual acuity is not enough., Something is broken when the food comes on a Styrofoam tray wrapped in slippery plastic, a carcass of a being whose only chance at life was a cramped cage. Goodreads helps you follow your favorite authors. In this way, the trees all act as one because the fungi have connected them.. In the end, Nicola has to be tricked into accepting her death; the novel lets us ask whether this really is a trick. Wolf hunts! May you accept them as such. But of all these persecutors the greatest is her mother, the woman with whom she experienced the Anschluss, the depredations and degradations of Nazi Vienna, Theresienstadt, Auschwitz, Christianstadt, a death march, the DP camps, and finally postwar life in America. "T his is a time to take a lesson from mosses," says Robin Wall Kimmerer, celebrated writer and botanist. To wit: Ruth Kluger, Still Alive: A Holocaust Girlhood Remembered (2001) One of thegreatest Holocaust memoirs, no, a fucking great book, period. Moving deftly between scientific evidence and storytelling, Kimmerer reorients our understanding of the natural world. But I do think Clanchys earlier book Antigona and Me is an even greater accomplishment, with perhaps wider appeal. In sum, a good month: Kluger, Jiles, Szab, Gornick, and Kimmerer all excellent. The first half of the book is classic boarding school storyGina is a haughty outsider, she alienates the other girls, she struggles to become part of their cliquesbut, after a failed escape attempt, as the political situation in Hungary changes drastically (the Germans take over their client state in early 1944; Adolf Eichmann is sent to Budapest to oversee the deportation of what was at that point the largest intact Jewish community in Europe), Gina learns how much more is at stake than her personal happiness. Yet the problem is that the former seems the product of the latter instead of the other way around. Articulating an alternative vision of environmental stewardship informed by traditional ecological knowledge. Never has the watery juice of a can of tomatoes seemed such a horrible relief. He senses nothing but heartbreak can come of the situation, and his heart doesnt feel up to it. About light and shadow and the drift of continents. A few of the titles below helped with that. 12. Helen is resentful, too, about the demanding and disgusting job of taking care of Nicola (seldom have sheets been stripped, washed, and remade as often as in this novel). Exactly how they do this, we dont yet know. So what was happening in that long-ago time? Jamie observes a moth trapped on the surface of the water as clearly as an Alaskan indigenous community whose past is being brought to light by the very climactic forces that threaten its sustainability. That was in the middle of a wave of protests across Canada regarding indigenous rights (more specifically, their absence), prompted by an RCMP raid against the hereditary chiefs of the Wetsuweten Nation, who along with their allies are seeking to prevent a pipeline from being built across their unceded territory. Because they do., modern capitalist societies, however richly endowed, dedicate themselves to the proposition of scarcity. That moment could be difficult or charged and might not be fun. The people in my reading group pointed out that change has to be local, that we cant be responsible for the big picture, that we need to avoid paralysis. News of the World centers on one Captain Jefferson Kidd, who travels through post-Civil War Texas offering readings from a collection of newspapers that he periodically replenishes whenever he reaches a larger town. News of the World is one of my finds of the year, and Im pretty sure itll be on my end-of-year list. But she loves to hear from readers and friends, so please leave all personal correspondence here. I suspect to really take her measure I would need to re-read her, or, better yet, teach her, which I might do next year, using Happening. Inspiring for my work in progress: Daniel Mendelsohns Three Rings: A Tale of Exile, Narrative, and Fate. Its an idea that might begin to redistribute the social and economic inequalities attendant in neoliberalism. Sign up for periodic news updates and event invitations. Kimmerer, who is from New York, has become a cult figure for nature-heads since the release of her first book Gathering Moss (published by Oregon State University Press in 2003, when she was 50, well into her career as a botanist and professor at SUNY . The concept of the honorable harvest, or taking only what one needs and using only what one takes, is another Indigenous practice informed by reciprocity. These are the meanings people took with them when they were forced from their ancient homelands to new places., Wed love your help. In addition to reviews of the things I read, I wrote a couple of personal things last year that Im pleased with: an essay about my paternal grandmother, and another about my love for the NYRB Classics imprint. Slow burn: Magda Szab, Abigail (translated by Len Rix). Registered office: 20 Vauxhall Bridge Rd, London,SW1V 2SA, UK. Longest book (runner up): Dickenss Our Mutual Friend A mere 900-pager. The world is not inexhaustible; it is finite. If what Gornick calls the Freudian century is not for you, then give this book a pass. The librarians are women who get to shoot and ride and swear and live, enticing exceptions to the rigidly prescribed gender roles of the times. Biodiversity loss and the climate crisis make it clear that its not only the land that is broken, but our relationship to land. That aspect can only be thwarted or defeated by a purgation: rather than hoard we must give (back). She is the author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants.Kimmerer lives in Syracuse, New York, where she is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology and the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples . Lives Reclaimed: A Story of Rescue and Resistance in Nazi Germany, All Flourishing is Mutual: Robin Wall Kimmerers Braiding Sweetgrass. Kimmerer suggests that the windigo rests potentially in all of us, less a monster than an aspect of human being. It depends what we bring to the healing afterwards. It is a hallmark of the language of Sweetgrass. Mostly, though, reading books is just what I do. I loved the short final chapter describing her shame and bewilderment, on taking up a favourite (unnamed) book, at the passages she had marked in earlier readings. I choose joy over despair., Philosophers call this state of isolation and disconnection species lonelinessa deep, unnamed sadness stemming from estrangement from the rest of Creation, from the loss of relationship. Reading Braiding Sweetgrass was almost painfully poignant; I couldnt reconcile what I experienced as the rightness of Kimmerers claims with the lived experience of late capitalism. My two prime candidates for deep dives this year are Edith Wharton and Toni Morrison. When I mention Im interviewing Robin Wall Kimmerer, the indigenous environmental scientist and author, to certain friends, they swoon. Omer Bartovs Anatomy of a Genocide: The Life and Death of a Town Called Buczacz is another fine example of the particular used to generate general conclusions. I was moved and delighted and recommend it without reservationcould be just the ticket when youre stuck inside feeling anxious. The author of "Braiding Sweetgrass" on how human people are only one manifestation of intelligence in the living world. She challenges the idea of (scientific) detachment: For what good is knowing, unless it is coupled with caring? (I will say, she likes rhetorical questions too much for my taste.). But when you feel that the earth loves you in return, that feeling transforms the relationship from a one-way street into a sacred bond., This is really why I made my daughters learn to gardenso they would always have a mother to love them, long after I am gone., Even a wounded world is feeding us. Do you like wind? Stone cold modern classics: Sybille Bedfords Jigsaw (autofiction before it was a thing, but with the texture of a great realist novel, complete with extraordinary events and powerful mother-daughter dramathis book could easily have won the Booker); Anita Brookners Look at Me (Brookners breakout: like Bowen with clearer syntax and even more damagedand damagingcharacters); William Maxwell, They Came Like Swallows (a sensitive boy, abruptly faced with loss; a loving mother and a distant father; a close community that is more dangerous than it lets on: weve read this story before, but Maxwell makes it fresh and wondering). I found the chapters on D. H. Lawrence and Elizabeth Bowen especially good; not coincidentally these are writers Ive very familiar with (which bodes well for her readings of writers I dont know, like Colette and Natalia Ginzburg). To consider the significance of nonhuman people. The whole matters more than the parts, I think, even though Kimmerer is a good essayist, deft at performing the braiding of ideas demanded by the form. The book then offers several case studies of writers who have meant a lot to Gornick. Plus, I did the best job Ive done with it yet, which was satisfying and solidified my love for the book. YES! As she says, sometimes a fact alone is a poem. (But she also says that metaphor is a way of telling truth far greater than scientific data.) Kimmerer is a scientist, a poet, an activist, a lover of the world. 5 23 Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants is a 2013 nonfiction book by Potawatomi professor Robin Wall Kimmerer, about the role of Indigenous knowledge as an alternative or complementary approach to Western mainstream scientific methodologies. She is the author of numerous scientific articles, and the book Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses. (I know other bloggers have reviewed this too. Why not unplug for a bit, and read instead? Speaking Agent, Authors UnboundChristie Hinrichs | christie@authorsunbound.com View Robins Speaking Profile here, Literary Agent, Aevitas Creative ManagementSarah Levitt | slevitt@aevitascreative.com, Publicity, Milkweed EditionsJoanna Demkiewicz | joanna_demkiewicz@milkweed.org, 2020 Robin Wall KimmererWebsite Design by Authors Unbound. Here she is, having re-read Adrienne Richs conclusion about Dickinsonthat extreme psychological states can be put into language, but only language that has been forged, never in the words that first come to usthinking about Bowen: She had created stories and novels meant to acquaint the reader with the power of the one thingthe extreme psychological statethat she deeply understood: namely, that fear of feeling that makes us inflict on one another the little murders of the soul that anesthetize the spirit and shrivel the heart; stifle desire and humiliate sentiment; make war electrifying and peace dreary. Not for me, this time around (stalled out maybe 100 pages into each): The Corner That Held Them; Justine; The Raj Quartet; Antal Szerbs Journey by Moonlight. Im really interested in how the tools of Western environmental science can be guided by Indigenous principles of respect, responsibility, and reciprocity to create justice for the land. TEK refers to the body of knowledge Indigenous peoples cultivate through their relationship with the natural world. With a very busy schedule, Robin isn't always able to reply to every personal note she receives. Honorable mentions: Susie Steiner; Marcie R. Rendon; Ann Cleeves, The Long Call (awaiting the sequel impatiently); Tana French, The Searcher; Simenons The Flemish House (the atmosphere, the ending: good stuff). At first I found this idea both implausible and annoying (it used to be that publishers and reviewers compared books to Austen when they meant this is set in the 19th century and includes a love plot but now it seems to have expanded to mean this book is by a woman), but as I read on I started to see the point. I loved Kassabovas previous book, Border, and was thrilled that my high expectations for its follow-up were met. After her husband and daughter gave her a camera for Christmas in 1895, Stratton-Porter had also become an exceptional wildlife photographer, though her darkroom was a bathroom: a cast iron tub,. (Kluger is a great hater and knows how to hold a grudge.) The more times I read Still Alive the more towering I find its achievement. Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. Kimmerer, a professor of environmental biology and the director of the Centre for Native Peoples and the Environment at the State University of New York in Syracuse, is probably the most.

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