Rooted by Lyanda Lynn Haupt

Summary: (Amazon) In Rooted, cutting-edge science supports a truth that poets, artists, mystics, and earth-based cultures across the world have proclaimed over millennia: life on this planet is radically interconnected. Our bodies, thoughts, minds, and spirits are affected by the whole of nature, and they affect this whole in return. In this time of crisis, how can we best live upon our imperiled, beloved earth?

Award-winning writer Lyanda Lynn Haupt’s highly personal new book is a brilliant invitation to live with the earth in both simple and profound ways—from walking barefoot in the woods and reimagining our relationship with animals and trees, to examining the very language we use to describe and think about nature. She invokes rootedness as a way of being in concert with the wilderness—and wildness—that sustains humans and all of life.

In the tradition of Rachel Carson, Elizabeth Kolbert, and Mary Oliver, Haupt writes with urgency and grace, reminding us that at the crossroads of science, nature, and spirit we find true hope. Each chapter provides tools for bringing our unique gifts to the fore and transforming our sense of belonging within the magic and wonder of the natural world. 

Reviews:

1. Blog: https://www.terriwindling.com/blog/2021/06/rooted.html

Author's Website: https://www.lyandalynnhaupt.com/books

(Spirtuality Health)

Interviews:

1. Magers and Quinn Bookshop: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eR2vncPlv_w

Discussion Questions from online:

1. Little Brown and Co. : https://www.littlebrown.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Rooted-Reading-Group-Guide.pdf

Discussion Questions: (Please check back)

(https://www.terriwindling.com/blog/2021/06/rooted.html)

The Sakura Obsession by Naoko Abe

Summary: (Amazon) Collingwood Ingram—known as “Cherry” for his defining passion—was born in 1880 and lived until he was a hundred, witnessing a fraught century of conflict and change. Visiting Japan in 1902 and again in 1907, he fell in love with the country’s distinctive cherry blossoms, or sakura, and brought back hundreds of cuttings with him to England, where he created a garden of cherry varieties.

On a 1926 trip to Japan to search for new specimens, Ingram was shocked to find a dramatic decline in local cherry diversity. A cloned variety was taking over the landscape and becoming the symbol of Japan’s expansionist ambitions, while the rare and spectacular Taihaku, or “Great White Cherry,” had disappeared entirely.

But thousands of miles away, at Ingram’s country estate, the Taihaku still prospered. After returning to Britain, the amateur botanist buried a living cutting from his own collection into a potato and repatriated it to Japan via the Trans-Siberian Express. Over the decades that followed, Ingram became one of the world’s leading cherry experts and shared the joy of sakura both nationally and internationally, sending more than a hundred varieties of cherry tree to new homes around the globe, from Auckland, New Zealand to Washington, D.C.

As much a history of the cherry blossom in Japan as it is the story of one remarkable man, The Sakura Obsession follows the flower from its significance as a symbol of the imperial court, through the dark days of the Second World War, and up to the present-day worldwide fascination with this iconic blossom.

(WSJ)

Reviews:

Kirkus Reviews: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/naoko-abe/the-sakura-obsession/

Wall Street Journal (WSJ): https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-sakura-obsession-review-new-life-for-a-tree-11555081248

Author information: https://www.naokoabe.com/index.php/en/about

Interview:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWzxGuiOoLU

Discussion Questions:

(The Guardian)