Best Read of 2023: "Braiding Sweetgrass" by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Date(s) of reading

There’s a reason I’ve chosen Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer for my “Best Read of 2023. I have, in fact, read it all the way through twice, and have dipped in and out of different chapters throughout the year.
My first reading was in February and March of 2023, as I listened through the audiobook (read by Kimmerer herself) slowly. My second reading was in May and June, after a friend gifted me a physical copy of this wonderful book.

Honey and Jane present this year’s Best Read: Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer.

Why this book?

I found my way to this book after watching BBC4’s "The Magical World of Moss” with my granny back in February. It was an intriguing programme, and I went upstairs that evening very much wanting to learn more. So I did what I always do: started looking for books.

My search lead me to Robin Wall Kimmerer’s book Gathering Moss. Unfortunately for my tight budget, I was unable to find somewhere I could read it for free. No libraries I’m part of had it, and it wasn’t included in my audiobook membership. But guess what was? A book by the same author: Braiding Sweetgrass.

So, I got it. And I listened to it.

I listened to it as I worked on crocheting a blanket. I listened to it while flying internationally. I listened to it as I chopped vegetables for battuto. I listened to it, frequently skipping backwards to listen again to something I’d missed, or something that had especially captured my attention. I listened, and listened, and listened.

And, of course, told everyone about it.

What is this book about?

This book’s subtitle reads “Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants”. This is an apt, if somewhat dry, summary of the book’s thesis. Kimmerer is a Potawatomi ecologist. The Potawatomi are one of North America’s First Nations, and her family’s history along with her journey of reconnecting with her heritage shape Kimmerer’s book just as much as her training as a scientist and knowledge as an ecologist.

With a deft lyrical hand, Kimmerer weaves together the strands of scientific methodology and research, the historic (and ongoing) knowledge and wisdom of Indigenous peoples, and her own lived experiences. The result is a reflective and insightful body of work that challenges the reader’s ways of thinking about the world whilst teaching them a good deal about the ecological world in which we live.

My thoughts on this book

I loved this book. Obviously. It’s why I picked it out of the 100+ books I’ve read this year to share here. I loved it, and I’ve been telling everyone they should read it as well.

Kimmerer writes from a worldview and perspective that is quite different from my own. This is, in every single way, a good thing. It forced me to stop, re-read, consider, and rethink. All vitally important, especially as a British person living on colonised land myself. The Potawatomi are from North America, and I am in Australia, but the lessons and as relevant to me as they would be to a white American. Indigenous ways of thinking are radically different from non-Indigenous ways of thinking, and these differences contribute knowledge and understanding currently lacking in non-Indigenous thought and knowledge.

Kimmerer’s training as a scientist, and her experience as a researcher and writer, has perfectly positioned her to bridge the gap between Western scientific ways of knowing and Indigenous ways of knowing. She provides the reader with a clear map with which to orient themselves in the knew ways of thinking and knowing, and then to navigate them.

Kimmerer’s writing is clear, but may require re-reading in order to understand and fully absorb the things she is saying. For this reason, whilst I want everyone to read this book, I warn you that if you are wanting a light, easy read, this is probably not the book you want to reach for. If, however, you want to learn something, be challenged, and see the world in a new light, then this is exactly the book for you.

How this book has affected me

“We are showered every day with gifts, but they are not meant for us to keep. Their life is in their movement, the inhale and exhale of our shared breath. 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.”

— Robin Wall Kimmerer

In my opinion, the best books are the ones that shift something inside of you, making reality just that bit more real and relationships that bit more precious. The Anne books do this for me without fail, and this is the effect that Braiding Sweetgrass has had on me.

This book has adjusted the way I perceive the world around me. I look at my garden and am more conscious of the intricate totality of the ecosystems and lives that fill it. I pay closer attention to the rain as it falls, to the way leaves bud and flowers mature into fruit. I stop and turn my head in the direction of birdsong more often, and sit breathing more intentionally. I watch the skies more closely and study the food I prepare more intently. I’ve even cooked food from this book, and Three Sisters Soup is now a family favourite.

I have read more. I’ve read books that dive into the science of trees, or soil, or mushrooms, or or or. And with every new book, my world becomes bigger, more complex, more extraordinary, and yet more integrated, more friendly, more intimate.

Braiding Sweetgrass has also clarified, challenged, enhanced and given new direction to my understanding of community. Kimmerer speaks extensively on gift economy and reciprocity. I would not have expected this to result in a paradigm shift. We Christians speak regularly about generosity and gratitude. However, there is a mutuality to reciprocity that is frequently missing from the Christian rhetoric.’

The number of times I have heard “you come to church to serve, not to be served” is probably concerning. In theory, if everyone is serving then everyone is being served. In practice, however, if the purpose of going to church is to serve, then what happens when you can’t serve? And when the advice that is given when you are feeling discouraged is to “serve more”, how does one avoid internalising the belief that there is a limit to how much help one can ask for?

Approaching my relationships with others with the mindset of reciprocity has alleviated some of those concerns. “A gift is also a responsibility” says Kimmerer, and I am now better able to say “my gift is this, and my responsibility is to use it well, and that includes setting boundaries and limits. Other have gifts and it is their responsibility to use them well, and that includes responding to my needs when they are able.” I find I am more able to accept a gift of time, or service, or finances without guilt, and more able to identify and value my own reciprocal gifts: service, time, or finances as I am able to.

And it all started here, with Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer.

Follow-up Reading Recommendations

Honey and Jane seen here modelling the follow up reading recommendations (sans The Power of Trees by Peter Wohlleben. That was already returned to the library).

The Power of Trees by Peter Wohlleben
Just about anything by German forester turned ecologist Wohlleben would be an excellent companion to this book. Like Kimmerer, Wohlleben combines scientific research and lived experience to tell the stories of nature in language the average reader can understand. The Power of Trees, however, is his most recent release, and is filled with fascinating information and insights. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it.
I would like to take this opportunity to shout out Jane Billinghurst. I can’t read German, the original language of Wohlleben’s books, but Billinghurst has translated most of the ones I have read. Her translations ensure the accessibility and passion of Wohlleben’s work is not lost (in translation), but instead is just as available to the English language reader.

Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake
Of the non-fiction books listed here, mycologist Merlin Sheldrake’s Entangled Life is perhaps the most scientifically detached. This is not to say it is cold and clinic. Sheldrake’s writing is engaging and clear, his passion for the mycelium he studies fills every page. Still, his approach was clearly “how can I make this exciting science accessible to the layperson?” rather than “I’m going to tell stories about nature and science is part of that”. Part of the difference in approach is probably down to Sheldrake’s youth. Sheldrake is still in his 30s, whereas both Kimmerer and Wohlleben have 2+ on him. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, and I enjoyed every single moment of his book. That’s why I’m recommending it. Fungus is mindboggling and, quite frankly, so cool! I hope Sheldrake writes more in the future. I’m willing to bet he has more to tell us about the wonderful world of fungi.

Future Girl by Asphyxia
Unlike the other books in this post, Future Girl is a novel. It is a novel in the emerging genre of “solarpunk fiction” - my generation’s answer to the “cyberpunk fiction” embodied in works such as Blade Runner. Like cyberpunk, solarpunk examines trends in society and draws an image of a possible future. Unlike cyberpunk, solarpunk presents a hopeful action plan for pushing back against our increasingly dystopian lives, encouraging us to focus on community and intentionally cultivate relationship with nature. Future Girl does this wonderfully, as Asphyxia, herself a Deaf Australian, follows Piper - a Deaf Australian teenager in a Melbourne of soaring costs of living, corporate greed, and environmental disaster - as she finds herself and her place in community through her decision to start growing her own food garden.

Honeybee Hearts and Baking

“And now for one moment, maybe two, sheltered by the holly, which also pricks my thighs, I forget where I am. Forget the house that doesn’t feel like home yet, and the hectic work schedule. This is when the idea arrives. Here is where the bees would be, I think, and then catch myself thinking it.”

— Helen Jukes

A Honeybee Heart has Five Openings

By Helen Jukes

This book caught my attention back in December, and I was immediately interested in getting my hands on a copy and reading it. So, when I joined a book club a couple of months ago and was asked to nominate a book, I did not hesitate to put this one forward. And it was accepted! Now I had an excuse to order myself a copy and spend a day reading it. Yay!

Why this book?

I have had a growing interest in bees - honeybees in particular - for a while now. I guess the start of my awareness of bees and their importance to our ecosystem was The Bee Movie (cue the horrified screaming).

But that was several years ago. So when a swarm of bees settled themselves into the walls of my sharehouse in Wollongong back in 2017, I knew very little more than that they were pollinators and endangered.

Of course, we couldn’t leave them to build their hive in the walls of the house. Although, maybe it would have been cool to knock down the wall of my bedroom a year later and just grab some honey. Still, it’s not really good for the house. So we called a beekeeper. Who immediately came and killed all the bees. Which was devastating - they weren’t harming anyone! They just couldn’t be where they were.

Anyway, that was when I knew I wanted to learn more about bees. But I had no idea where to start and I was too unwell to look into it without any kind of guidance. So, I set it to one side and figured I could come back to it at a later date.

Which brings us to last December. My mother and I were road-tripping to Coober Pedy and we stopped in Adelaide for a few days. While there, we - naturally - visited Dymocks. Whilst browsing the shelves, I came across this book and was intrigued, but unable to purchase it at that point in time. So I snapped a photo on my phone and continued hunting for other books to add to my list. Because that is all I do. If you follow me on Goodreads, you’ll probably see that.

I then forgot about it for a few months. Then in May, just a week or two before the opportunity came up to join the book club and nominate a book, I came across the photo in my phone, look up the book and decided I had to read it.

The rest, as they say, is history.

What is the book about?

This book is an autobiographical year-in-the-life. Helen Jukes, an English writer, shares very personally about her first year in Oxford, which became her first year of beekeeping.

She breaks the book down into the different stage of beekeeping over that year, and then further into each month. This means it is clear and straightforward to follow the progression from her first thought about getting bees, her research into the history of bees and beekeeping all the way through to the end of the first twelve months and her first honey harvest.

My thoughts on the book

I loved this book! Which is, of course, why I chose it for the inaugural post of this section of the blog.

Helen Jukes’s writing was clear, straightforward and elegant. I found myself absorbed in her world and her excitement and fascination with honeybees. Whilst this book is technically an autobiography, it felt more like reading a love letter. Her passion and love were all on display, and it was hard not to get caught up in her joys and her disappointments.

As well as being incredibly personal, this book was overflowing with information about bees and the history of their relationship with humans. Here, Jukes’s strengths as a writer and communicator really shone through, as with another writer, this may have veered into the tedious. Instead, Jukes remained clear and engaging throughout, and instead of growing bored, I found my own interest and fascination with honeybees growing. I am also incredibly grateful for the books she references - I now know where to go to keep learning about these amazing little creatures!

I also found that, for me, reading as a Christian, it was such an amazing encouragement to slow down and watch God’s creation more closely, more carefully, instead of acknowledging it from a distance and moving on. Jukes herself is not religious, but I still found her reflections on nature to be edifying.

In short, this book was engaging, personal and informative, and I strongly encourage people read it. If only to learn a little more about these tiny, but vital, animals.

How this book affected me

I personally don’t believe there’s much point in reading if what you are reading isn’t influencing your life in some way or another. Sometimes, it’s emotionally, as a book helps you process or understand your emotions more. Sometimes, it’s mentally as you learn and your thinking evolves. Sometimes, it’s practically. That was the case with this book.

After the incident with the swarm of bees at my home, I became curious about the role of beekeepers. This book was eye-opening and increased my interest further. I am no longer satisfied with simply reading about bees and beekeeping. So, I reached out to my local Amateur Beekeeping Association to ask some questions, and to see if I can attend a meeting or two. They responded and said I would be very welcome! Sadly, I don’t think it will be possible for me to attend this month’s meeting, as it is the day after my book launch (Amidst the Ash, coming July 13). I suspect that I will be in desperate need of some rest that day, and probably for a few days afterwards. Still, I am hopeful that I may be able to attend next months meeting. If things go well, I may even be able to start getting involved with beekeeping by helping out with caring for their hives.

I am extremely excited for this opportunity. Who knows? Maybe one day I’ll be able to keep a hive or two myself!

This book also grew my appreciation not only of bees, but also of honey. Seriously - honey is incredible! And, as with bees, I now want to learn so much more about it. I am also starting to use it more in my food and my teas. Mostly my chai.

At the end of the book, after Jukes and her friends have harvested the honey, she makes a honey cake. Which, naturally, made me start craving honey cake. So, I jumped onto my trusty old Pinterest and found this recipe. I’m pretty sure it’s not the cake that Jukes made, but it scratched where I itched and was delicious! I fully intend to make it again!

Did you know…

Honeybees have undertaker bees? According to Jukes, one of the many roles that worker bees can fill over the course of their life is that of undertaker. And yes, it’s exactly what it sounds like! Their job is to take care of the dead. When a bee dies inside the hive, the undertakers make sure that the body is taken outside and moved a safe distance away from the colony.

Isn’t that so cool??