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Schuyler D

schuyler1d@bookrastinating.com

Joined 1 year, 6 months ago

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David Graeber, David Wengrow: The Dawn of Everything (Hardcover, 2021, Signal) 4 stars

For generations, our remote ancestors have been cast as primitive and childlike--either free and equal …

Graeber books are sometimes intimidating -- I'd say if you just read the first 100 pages, you'll have read a great, somewhat self-contained, narrative. Of course, you'll just have had a taste, and the larger stronger thesis is worth learning about.

All the amazing Native American cultures and across the world are worth it.

Suzanne Simard: Finding the Mother Tree (Hardcover, 2021, Knopf) 5 stars

Alt title: Memoirs of a Dirt-eater

5 stars

When I first heard of this book and its title, I assumed it would be pretty wu-wu. What it turned out to be was a heart-felt memoir by a scientist about how they turned their intuition about the forest as a child into some nobel-prize-deserving discoveries.

The book opens with the most appetizing mouth-watering descriptions of dirt -- the "good" dirt is called humus, and the literary feat of making me feel like I missed out in my childhood for avoiding mushroomy loamy dirt allowed the author quite a bit of running room as she described her early years. Getting into the discoveries themselves and going up against a logging-industry intoxicated national service was wonderful.