June Not Fiction Book Discussion

“The best arguments in the world won't change a person's mind. The only thing that can do that is a good story.” Richard Powers, The Overstory

In The Overstory: A Novel by Richard Powers, a paradigm-shifting story of activism and resistance, nine people who know how to listen are brought together by five trees to protest the destruction of our forests.

At the beginning of the book, a woman sits in a park: "A chorus of living wood sings to the woman: If your mind were only a slightly greener thing, we'd drown you in meaning. The pine she leans against says: Listen. There's something you need to hear." Powers brings to life Robin Wall Kimmerer's vision of a communal, reciprocal relationship between people and plants. It is a work of fiction imagined with the help of many works of nonfiction and containing within it a fictional nonfiction work. In a By the Book interview with The New York Times (March 28, 2019), Powers says he has "a large bookshelf devoted to trees and their allies." Powers' research for the novel literally changed his life, leading him to Tennessee's Great Smoky Mountains, where he now lives. 

What do you think? Has The Overstory changed your perspective on your place in the natural world and your responsibility to it?

We hope you will join the discussion:

When? Tuesday, June 1, at 6:30 p.m.

Where? We will meet virtually on CCPL's Zoom server. Here is a link to register for the June meeting: 

Hi there, 

You are invited to a Zoom meeting. 

When: Jun 1, 2021 06:30 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada) 

Register in advance for this meeting:

https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYqceisqjkvGdQlXPa0Wx5dyNGMbiuz9u5K 

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Readalikes: If you enjoyed May's selection . . .

 If you enjoyed Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer, then you might also like these books suggested by our discussion group members:

• The World-Ending Fire: The Essential Wendell Berry by Wendell Berry
• The New Wilderness: A Novel by Diane Cook
• The Signature of All Things: A Novel by Elizabeth Gilbert
• Lab Girl by Hope Jahren
• Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver
• Prodigal Summer: A Novel by Barbara Kingsolver
• A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold
• The Overstory: A Novel by Richard Powers
• Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake
• Language of Landscape by Anne Whiston Spirn

May Not Fiction Book Discussion

Jenny Odell, author of last month's book, How to Do Nothing, acknowledges the influence of this month's book, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer, to her own thinking about the power of our attention. Kimmerer, SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology and the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, brings together these two points of view, the scientific and the reverential, to awaken our ecological consciousness. With a lyrical blend of precise detail and engaging storytelling, Kimmerer helps us to see the world around us with new eyes.

We hope you will join the discussion:

When? Tuesday, May 4, at 6:30 p.m.

Where? We will meet virtually on CCPL's Zoom server. Here is a link to register for the May meeting: 

Hi there, 

You are invited to a Zoom meeting. 

When: May 4, 2021 06:30 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada) 

Register in advance for this meeting:

https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYqceisqjkvGdQlXPa0Wx5dyNGMbiuz9u5K 

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Readalikes: If you liked April's selection . . .

 If you liked How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell, then you might also enjoy these books suggested by our discussion group members:

• World-Ending Fire: The Essential Wendell Berry
• Kids These Days: The Making of Millennials by Malcolm Harris
• Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
• Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World by Cal Newport
• Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It by Ethan Kross
• Can't Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation by Anne Helen Petersen
• How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence by Michael Pollan
• The Overstory by Richard Powers
• Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion by Jia Tolentino
• The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads by Tim Wu
• The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power by Shoshana Zuboff

If you enjoyed Nomadland by Jessica Bruder . . .

If you enjoyed Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century by Jessica Bruder, which we read together in 2018, then you might enjoy this interview with Bruder from Esquire that a discussion group member shared: Nomadland Is a Real Human Story That's Not Over Yet by Adrienne Westenfeld. Bruder tells us how some of the people she featured in her book are doing, what life on the road is like during the pandemic, and what it was like for her book to be made into an award-winning film by Chloé Zhao featuring some of the actual nomads she profiles.

April Not Fiction Book Discussion

Last month's book, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshana Zuboff, informed us of the threat posed by internet platforms for the benefit of a few technology entrepreneurs and their iconic companies to the economy, to democracy, to society, and to our right to define our own personal future by how we use our time and attention. How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell  is a guide to taking back our time and attention. It is a political manifesto for resisting the limited future planned for us by what Zuboff calls "surveillance capitalism." With her entertaining and subtly subversive ramble through ancient philosophy, stories of political resistance, art and literature, and nature, Odell encourages us to disconnect from the online world and its message of efficiency and productivity and reconnect to the actual world around us.

We hope you will join the discussion:

When? Tuesday, April 6, at 6:30 p.m.

Where? We will meet virtually on CCPL's Zoom server. Here is a link to register for the April meeting.

Hi there, 

You are invited to a Zoom meeting. 

When: Apr 6, 2021 06:30 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada) 

Register in advance for this meeting:

https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYqceisqjkvGdQlXPa0Wx5dyNGMbiuz9u5K 

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Readalikes: If you enjoyed March's selection . . .

If you enjoyed The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power by Shoshana Zuboff, then you might also like these books and film suggested by our discussion group members:

• The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr
• The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt
• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
• How To Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell
• 1984 by George Orwell
• Capital in the 21st Century by Thomas Piketty
• The Social Network by Ben Mezrich, book; Aaron Sorkin, screenplay; and David Fincher, director