About this Event
A new book club about the environment and climate crisis! We will read a mix of non-fiction, novels, essays, speculative fiction, sci-fi and graphic novels that provide a diverse lens on the people, places, and spaces that are affected by our changing climate.
This book club is hosted by Jess Schreibstein. Jess just finished a graduate degree in Sustainability from Harvard at the end of 2022 and served as Communications Lead of our local Sunrise Movement chapter during the 2020 election cycle. She has been hosting this book club virtually since 2020 and is excited to bring an in-person version to her favorite local bookstore!
The August book is A Darker Wilderness edited by Erin Sharkey.
About A DARKER WILDERNESS:
A vibrant collection of personal and lyric essays in conversation with archival objects of Black history and memory.
What are the politics of nature? Who owns it, where is it, what role does it play in our lives? Does it need to be tamed? Are we ourselves natural? In A Darker Wilderness, a constellation of luminary writers reflect on the significance of nature in their lived experience and on the role of nature in the lives of Black folks in the United States. Each of these essays engages with a single archival object, whether directly or obliquely, exploring stories spanning hundreds of years and thousands of miles, traveling from roots to space and finding rich Blackness everywhere.
Erin Sharkey considers Benjamin Banneker’s 1795 almanac, as she follows the passing of seasons in an urban garden in Buffalo. Naima Penniman reflects on a statue of Haitian revolutionary François Makandal, within her own pursuit of environmental justice. Ama Codjoe meditates on rain, hair, protest, and freedom via a photo of a young woman during a civil rights demonstration in Alabama. And so on—with wide-ranging contributions from Carolyn Finney, Ronald Greer II, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Sean Hill, Michael Kleber-Diggs, Glynn Pogue, Katie Robinson, and Lauret Savoy—unearthing evidence of the ways Black people’s relationship to the natural world has persevered through colonialism, slavery, state-sponsored violence, and structurally racist policies like Jim Crow and redlining.
A scrapbook, a family chest, a quilt—and an astounding work of historical engagement and literary accomplishment—A Darker Wilderness is a collection brimming with abundance and insight.
A Darker Wilderness is available for purchase at greedyreads.com!
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Greedy Reads Remington, 320 West 29th Street, Baltimore, United States
USD 0.00
