Braiding Sweetgrass

Robin Wall Kimmerer, a mother, plant scientist, distinguished professor of environmental biology, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, braids together Indigenous ways of knowing, Western science, and the teachings of plants into essays that read like gifts. Sweetgrass, corn, pecans, and lichens become teachers in an economy of reciprocity: the land gives to us, and asks that we give back.

Its history is as remarkable as its writing. Kimmerer sent the manuscript unsolicited to Milkweed Editions, a small nonprofit press in Minneapolis, and the book came out quietly in 2013. It spread hand to hand for years, helped along by her appearance on the On Being podcast, until it landed on the New York Times bestseller list in 2020, nearly seven years after publication, eventually hitting #1 and being voted the readers' pick among the Times' 100 best books of the 21st century.