Ask a Bookseller: 'The Serviceberry' by Robin Wall Kimmerer
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On The Thread’s Ask a Bookseller series, we talk to independent booksellers all over the country to find out what books they’re most excited about right now.
Fans of Robin Wall Kimmerer’s “Braiding Sweetgrass” were looking forward to her new collection of short essays “The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World,” which was published shortly before Thanksgiving.
Beth Hartung of Pearl Street Books in La Crosse, Wis., says it was at the top of her list of favorite books from last year. Weighing in at 128 pages with accompanying illustrations, “The Serviceberry” is “a true gem of a book” that’s an “incredible joy to read,” says Hartung.
Kimmerer is a biologist and a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, whose essay collection “Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants” (published by Milkweed Press in Minneapolis in 2013) was called A New York Times 100 Best Books of the 21st Century Readers Pick.
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In that collection, and in “The Serviceberry,” her short essays consider our connections with the natural world and with each other.
Serviceberries are shrubs or small trees, including some varieties indigenous to Minnesota, whose tart fruit feeds pollinators, birds, animals and humans alike.
Hartung explains that Kimmerer “uses the humble serviceberry as a metaphor to describe this world that she believes we can have, that we can exist in. And I believe it’s a world that many of us are longing to live in.
“It’s this world where there’s this abundance and that we’re focused on [having] enough, and we’re not focused on the scarcity. She describes a world where reciprocity is valued, a world where, individually and collectively, we recognize that we humans are interconnected with all of nature around us, and as we walk through the world, she urges us to really take note that what we do impacts everything else. And she describes [how] we can all adapt to or adopt sustainable living practices if we choose gift economy over capitalism.
“It’s just such an incredibly beautiful book. Every single page. I just wanted to pause after I read it and reflect on it and reread it. I’ve read it out loud to friends. I’ve gifted it to quite a few people already.”