Julia

My bestie recommended this back to me when it came out, and I have no idea why I didn't just read it immediately! She and I are literary "twin flames" (thanks, Megan Fox, for the parlance), so she was 100% accurate in her educated guess I would love this. 10/10; no notes. Read the last third really slowly because I didn't want it to end!! Epic, intimate, searing.

I don't think this quote from the final pages can be captured in its full glory out of context, but it was rattling around in my head for days afterward and came up in another book club when someone was talking about the tightrope between nihilistic despair and hope: "A breeze would blow them over, and the world is filled with more than breezes: diseases and disasters, monsters and pain in a thousand variations.... How can I live on beneath such a burden of doom?.... Circe, he says, it will be alright.... He does not mean that it does not hurt. He does not mean that we are not frightened. Only that: we are here. This is what it means to swim in the tide, to walk the earth and feel it touch your feet. This is what it means to be alive."

The blurb on the cover of this book, from Elizabeth Gilbert, says, “A hymn of love to the world.” Yes, yes, YES. I had first heard Wall Kimmerer talk about her perspective during an On Being podcast, and this book was just a treasure from start to finish. She has so much scientific and indigenous wisdom to share, and an exquisite way of blending the two. If I could make everyone I know read this book, I would. I tend to feel environmental despair (when I'm not actually out digging around in my garden), and this was the antidote, call to arms (or rather peace), and way forward.

Can't say enough good things about this book. The subtitle is exactly correct. Beautiful, funny, and wise. I also really enjoyed the format and the disability justice history. Bonus: I got some recommendations of queer disabled sci fi that are now on my "to read" list (already started and enjoying The Marrow Thieves).