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Common Read 2022: Braiding Sweetgrass

A guide to support the Mount Holyoke Common Read for 2022-23: Braiding Sweetgrass

About Braiding Sweetgrass

"Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, and as 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 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 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" (from https://milkweed.org/book/braiding-sweetgrass). 

In the fall, there will be 10 print copies of the book at LITS. You can also read the ebook (MHC login required). You can listen to the audio book on the Libby app by getting your Boston Public Library ecard (free to anyone who lives, works, or is a student in Massachusetts).

Robin Kimmerer on Braiding Sweetgrass

Video of Dr. Robin Kimmerer discussing Braiding Sweetgrass at  Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences in May 2022

Podcast: On Being with Krista Tippett

Logo for On Being podcast with Krista Tippett, The Intelligence of Plants