SPIRITED BOOK CLUB DISCUSSes ‘The Sereviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World’ by Robin Wall Kimmerer
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Braiding Sweetgrass, a bold and inspiring vision for how to orient our lives around gratitude, reciprocity, and community, based on the lessons of the natural world.
Book Overview
As Indigenous scientist and author of Braiding Sweetgrass Robin Wall Kimmerer harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy. How, she asks, can we learn from Indigenous wisdom and the plant world to reimagine what we value most? Our economy is rooted in scarcity, competition, and the hoarding of resources, and we have surrendered our values to a system that actively harms what we love. Meanwhile, the serviceberry’s relationship with the natural world is an embodiment of reciprocity, interconnectedness, and gratitude. The tree distributes its wealth—its abundance of sweet, juicy berries—to meet the needs of its natural community. And this distribution ensures its own survival. As Kimmerer explains, “Serviceberries show us another model, one based upon reciprocity, where wealth comes from the quality of your relationships, not from the illusion of self-sufficiency.”
As Elizabeth Gilbert writes, Robin Wall Kimmerer is “a great teacher, and her words are a hymn of love to the world.” The Serviceberry is an antidote to the broken relationships and misguided goals of our times, and a reminder that “hoarding won’t save us, all flourishing is mutual.”
A note from Book Club facilitator Sheri Brown
In keeping with this year’s Season of Creation theme – Peace with Creation – The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer is a sweet read of a book based on the premise as found on page 12: “Climate catastrophe and biodiversity loss are the consequences of unrestrained taking by humans. Might cultivation of gratitude be part of the solution?” With the serviceberry tree as model, Kimmerer offers readers a way to understand relationships and exchange. The book is a short but inspiring study on the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy. Spirited readers will discuss the gift economies in our own lives, and how establishing/expanding practices of gratitude and reciprocity can foster peace with creation.
editorial Reviews for ‘The Serviceberry’
Named a Best Book of the Year by Scientific American, Forbes, and Library Journal
“The Serviceberry is a profoundly important book about how we might remodel consumer economies around mutuality, generosity, and bountifulness. The time you’ll spend reading this book will, like the time spent picking wild berries, nourish your soul, heart, and mind. I hope to give this book to everybody.” —Anthony Doerr, author of All the Light We Cannot See and Cloud Cuckoo Land
“A meditation on communing with nature and cultivating connections with one another . . . [a] short, thoughtful book . . . Think of The Serviceberry as a subset of Braiding Sweetgrass, expanding on the gift economy theory… She makes a convincing argument, wrapped in beautiful language and vivid imagery… An optimistic book, one that trusts in the ability of people to do the right thing.” —Washington Post
“Robin Wall Kimmerer, celebrated author of Braiding Sweetgrass, gifts her readers once again with this gorgeous meditation on reciprocity and abundance in nature. . . Beautifully illustrated, brimming and buzzing with plant and animal life, The Serviceberry is a lyrical call to action.” —Oprah Daily
“The Serviceberry is a gem of a book. it invites us to think again about economics, and imagine another way of relating to one another based on generosity, kindness, interconnectedness, and restraint. The book reminds us that how we think, and the stories we tell, shape how we live—and it’s high time we thought and lived differently, with new stories, about our place in nature.” —James Rebanks
“A moving meditation on what a giving tree can teach us about building a fairer society… A compelling argument for a more ethical economy.” —TIME
“A beautiful meditation on abundance, reciprocity and community, drawing inspiration from indigenous wisdom, and inviting us to reimagine what we value most.” —The Guardian
“The Serviceberry picks up where Braiding Sweetgrass left off, once again using the interconnectedness of nature as a guiding light to reimagine a path forward for the future… The message of The Serviceberry is clear: Our individualistic, pro-competition, consumption-focused capitalist economy is inherently flawed and is leading us down a destructive and lonely path… .” —The San Francisco Chronicle
CLUB DISCUSSION dates
BOOK CLUB meets Thursday, September 25 @ 3:00 – 4:00 pm AZ (PDT)
++Book discussion facilitated by Sheri Brown
About the author
Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She is the author of Bud Finds Her Gift, The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, which has earned Kimmerer wide acclaim. Her first book, Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses, was awarded the John Burroughs Medal for outstanding nature writing, and her other work has appeared in Orion, Whole Terrain, and numerous scientific journals. In 2022, Braiding Sweetgrass was adapted for young adults by Monique Gray Smith. This new edition reinforces how wider ecological understanding stems from listening to the earth’s oldest teachers: the plants around us.
Robin tours widely and has been featured on NPR’s On Being with Krista Tippett and in 2015 addressed the general assembly of the United Nations on the topic of “Healing Our Relationship with Nature.” Kimmerer is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology, and the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, whose mission is to create programs which draw on the wisdom of both indigenous and scientific knowledge for our shared goals of sustainability. In 2022 she was named a MacArthur Fellow.
As a writer and a scientist, her interests in restoration include not only restoration of ecological communities, but restoration of our relationships to land. She holds a BS in Botany from SUNY ESF, an MS and PhD in Botany from the University of Wisconsin and is the author of numerous scientific papers on plant ecology, bryophyte ecology, traditional knowledge and restoration ecology. She lives on an old farm in upstate New York, tending gardens both cultivated and wild.
Read more about Robin Wall Kimmerer. To access her work, go to https://www.robinwallkimmerer.com/books.
Robin Wall Kimmerer is donating her advance payments from this book as a reciprocal gift, back to the land, for land protection, restoration, and justice.
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