Hello, Epic Insiders! One of my favorite reality shows, So You Think You Can Dance, is back and I’m trying to move into the week with this Big Luther Brown-choreo Energy. If I can channel even a teaspoon of it, it will be an upgrade.
Announcements
Two quick reminders — we’ve got some super cute printable bookmarks up on Etsy if puns and plants are a thing you need in your life, and we’d love to hear your thoughts about the New Release Index.
And now, onto my musings on everyone’s favorite topic:
What Are You Reading?
I’m recently returned from a week of vacation, which sometimes means I’ve read a ton and sometimes means I’ve read almost nothing at all.
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This is one of the latter times — I finished two books while we were camping. One of them was for Read Harder, so you’ll hear about that on a future episode (teasers!). The other was singularly appropriate for a camping read, which is why I brought it with me! Earlier this year, Megan Mayhew Bergman put together a list of 14 women nature writers, and it inspired me to put Woodswoman by Anne Labastille into my next used-book-ordering cart. I am here to tell you that while it’s far from a perfect read, it was very soothing.
Labastille is clearly in love with the Adirondacks, and is frank and pretty funny when talking about both the challenges and the rewards of living in a cabin in the woods without electricity, roads, or many basic resources most of us take for granted. I personally have zero desire to replicate that lifestyle, but I love reading about it, especially from the perspective of a woman who was figuring out her own life and relationships in the context of this lifestyle.
My biggest problem with the book is that, like so many writers both in her own time and now, she completely erases Native Americans from the narrative, and even goes so far as to use the word “native” to describe white settlers who had been there for their own personal lifetimes. I both cringed and yelled at the book a few times on that score (c’mon, Anne!); something to keep in mind if you pick it up! Thankfully we have writers like Robin Wall Kimmerer and David Treuer out here educating us.
What are you reading these days? Click through to add your reading list to the comments!
-Jenn