sophia_sol: photo of a 19th century ivory carving of a fat bird (Default)
soph ([personal profile] sophia_sol) wrote2021-10-23 12:23 pm

Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer

This is a nonfiction book about being in relationship with the natural world, from the perspective of an author who draws from both her indigenous heritage and her training as a botanist to talk about reciprocal relationships between beings, and the work we need to do to care for the earth. It's a beautiful, thoughtful, and evocative read, and I highly recommend it.

It also wasn't the easiest book for me to read, because I think it's the kind of thing that would work best when read a chapter at a time and then left to percolate in one's brain for a while in between chapters, but my two ways of reading are "gobble it down as fast as possible" or "oops I got distracted from this book and accidentally didn't pick it up again for 2 months" so uhhh that wasn't going to happen for me. So I read the whole book over the course of just two days instead, and I think I missed out on some of the reading experience as a result.

Still definitely worth reading though! Even if I don't seem to be able to say much concrete about it. But it is a book that has gotten much hype (at least in the circles I move in) so I feel confident there are plenty of people elsewhere on the internet talking more in depth about what this book is doing, if you want more than what I've said.
chestnut_pod: A close-up photograph of my auburn hair in a French braid (Default)

[personal profile] chestnut_pod 2021-10-24 11:53 pm (UTC)(link)
I adore this book -- always happy to hear people's thoughts about it!
lirazel: A still of Heloise, Sophie, and Marianne from Portrait of a Lady on Fire ([film] feminist utopia)

[personal profile] lirazel 2021-10-25 06:40 pm (UTC)(link)
Yes, I have heard about this book over and over but never actually picked it up. I'm glad you enjoyed it!