Black History Month
Used, New, and Out of Print Books - We Buy and Sell - Powell's Books
Cart |
|  my account  |  wish list  |  help   |  800-878-7323
Hello, | Login
MENU
  • Browse
    • New Arrivals
    • Bestsellers
    • Award Winners
    • Signed Preorders
    • Signed Editions
    • Digital Audio Books
    • Newsletters
    • See All Subjects
  • Used
  • Staff Picks
    • Staff Picks
    • Picks of the Month
    • Staff Top Fives 2018
    • Boox
    • Indiespensable
    • 25 Books From the 21st Century
    • 25 Memoirs to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Global Books to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Women to Read Before You Die
    • 25 Books to Read Before You Die
  • Gifts + Gift Cards
    • Gift Cards & eGift Cards
    • Powell's Souvenirs
    • Read Rise Resist Gear
    • Journals & Notebooks
    • Games
    • Socks
  • Sell Books
    • Sell Books Online
    • Sell Books in Our Stores
  • Blog
  • Events
  • Find A Store
McAfee Secure

Don't Miss

  • Black History Month
  • 22 Books We Can't Wait to Read
  • Kids' Mirrors and Windows Sale
  • Staff Top Fives:
    Our Favorite Books of 2018
  • Self-Care Sale
  • BOOX #12: Animalphabet
  • Libro.fm Audiobooks

Visit Our Stores


Powell's Books: Portrait of a Bookseller: Gordon P. (0 comment)
I'm a Used Book Buyer. I get to sort through books and pick out the best ones for our shelves...
Read More»
  • Powell's Books: Powell's Picks Spotlight: Valeria Luiselli's 'Lost Children Archive' (0 comment)
  • Sophia Shalmiyev: Sophia Shalmiyev's Playlist for 'Mother Winter' (0 comment)

{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##

Braiding Sweetgrass Indigenous Wisdom Scientific Knowledge & the Teachings of Plants

by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Braiding Sweetgrass Indigenous Wisdom Scientific Knowledge & the Teachings of Plants

  • Comment on this title
  • Synopses & Reviews

ISBN13: 9781571313560
ISBN10: 1571313567



All Product Details

View Larger ImageView Larger Images
$18.00
New Trade Paperback
Ships in 1 to 3 days
Add to Cart
Add to Wishlist
QtyStore
44Burnside
2Cedar Hills
13Hawthorne
8Home & Garden
20Local Warehouse
20Remote Warehouse

From Powells.com

Natural Curiosities: Our

Synopses & Reviews

Publisher Comments

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, a mother, and 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 a rich braid of 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 a wider 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.

Review

"With deep compassion and graceful prose, botanist and professor of plant ecology Kimmerer (Gathering Moss) encourages readers to consider the ways that our lives and language weave through the natural world. A mesmerizing storyteller, she shares legends from her Potawatomi ancestors to illustrate the culture of gratitude in which we all should live. In such a culture, Everyone knows that gifts will follow the circle of reciprocity and flow back to you again... The grass in the ring is trodden down in a path from gratitude to reciprocity. We dance in a circle, not in a line. Kimmerer recalls the ways that pecans became a symbol of abundance for her ancestors: Feeding guests around the big table recalls the trees' welcome to our ancestors when they were lonesome and tired and so far from home. She reminds readers that we are showered every day with gifts, but they are not meant for us to keep... Our work and our joy is to pass along the gift and to trust that what we put into the universe will always come back." Publishers Weekly

Synopsis

Called the work of "a mesmerizing storyteller with deep compassion and memorable prose" (Publishers Weekly) and the book that, "anyone interested in natural history, botany, protecting nature, or Native American culture will love," by Library Journal, Braiding Sweetgrass is poised to be a classic of nature writing. As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer asks questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces indigenous teachings that consider plants and animals to be our oldest teachers. 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, a mother, and a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings offer us gifts and lessons, even if we've forgotten how to hear their voices.

Synopsis

Called the work of "a mesmerizing storyteller with deep compassion and memorable prose" (Publishers Weekly) and the book that, "anyone interested in natural history, botany, protecting nature, or Native American culture will love," by Library Journal, Braiding Sweetgrass is poised to be a classic of nature writing. As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer asks questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces indigenous teachings that consider plants and animals to be our oldest teachers. 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, a mother, and a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings offer us gifts and lessons, even if we've forgotten how to hear their voices.

About the Author

Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, a scientist, a decorated professor, and an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. A SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology and the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, she lives in Fabius, NY.

 


5 3

What Our Readers Are Saying

Share your thoughts on this title!
Average customer rating 5 (3 comments)

`
DC , June 12, 2018 (view all comments by DC)
Like the two previous reviewers, I recommend this book highly. It has changed how I garden, as one example. I now discuss things with the plants. I listen more. If you have any inclination, do read this book. It may allow some of the barriers to drop away and allow you to be more at home with your world.

Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No

(3 of 3 readers found this comment helpful)
report this comment

`
Ruth P. , October 01, 2016
I am planning on buying 10 copies of this book to give to friends. It is a book filled with beauty that is teaching me to see the world in a different way. It is a slow read--like slow food and slow dance music--wonderfully sensual, filled with word pictures and comparisons of eco-botanical science and the stories and wisdom from Native American beliefs, teachings and ways of life. The author will take a traditional belief and use scientific method to figure out why it works. For instance, the planting of the 3 sisters (corn, beans and squash) together, while producing foods that go well together, also turns out to produce more crop than planting them separately. The corn provides the stalks to support the beans. The beans fix the nitrogen in in soil that the corn needs to grow and the squash shades the roots of the other two. The three plants help with pollination and give nutrients to each other that are needed. The native way of planting and harvesting food often prevents the need for wide spread fertilizers and spraying. The planting of purple and yellow flowers together allows the eye system of bees to see the plants optimally and leads to better pollination. Finally she asks how the world would be different if we humans perceived all life as sacred, if we followed rules of fair/wise harvesting and hunting.

Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No

(8 of 8 readers found this comment helpful)
report this comment

`
Tasha H , October 21, 2014 (view all comments by Tasha H)
Robin Wall Kimmerer weaves together modern botany, Native American understandings of how the world works, and her own history to create a book I will read and re-read, a chapter at a time, for years to come. I will never look at the forest floor, or my relationship to the gifts I am given everyday, the same way again. If your heart is hurting from all the pain rocking the world, read this book, and let it gift you will possibilities.

Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No

(6 of 6 readers found this comment helpful)
report this comment




Product Details

ISBN:
9781571313560
Binding:
Trade Paperback
Publication date:
09/01/2014
Publisher:
MILKWEED EDITIONS
Pages:
390
Height:
1.10IN
Width:
5.50IN
Thickness:
1.00
Copyright Year:
2014
Author:
Robin Wall Kimmerer
Subject:
Biology-Reference

Ships free on qualified orders.
Add to Cart
$18.00
New Trade Paperback
Ships in 1 to 3 days
Add to Wishlist
QtyStore
44Burnside
2Cedar Hills
13Hawthorne
8Home & Garden
20Local Warehouse
20Remote Warehouse
Used Book Alert for book Receive an email when this ISBN is available used.
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Tumblr
  • Instagram

  • Help
  • Guarantee
  • My Account
  • Careers
  • About Us
  • Security
  • Wish List
  • Partners
  • Contact Us
  • Shipping
  • Newsletters
  • Sitemap
  • © 2019 POWELLS.COM Terms
  • 800-878-7323

{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##
{1}
##LOC[OK]## ##LOC[Cancel]##