Robin Wall Kimmerer

John Burgoyne

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

Compelling ... A moving meditation on what a giving tree can teach us about building a fairer society

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.

A meditation on communing with nature and cultivating connections with one another … Kimmerer makes a convincing argument, wrapped in beautiful language and vivid imagery

A sweet reminder of our interdependence

A gorgeous meditation on reciprocity and abundance in nature ... a lyrical call to action

An uplifting, open-hearted little book that asks us to reframe our relationships in the world as ones of easy generosity. To be wealthy, explains Robin Wall Kimmerer, is to have enough to share: give all that you have, and take only what you need

A masterful reflection on ecology and culture … startling in its simplicity. Kimmerer invites readers to envision a life that embraces the gift economy—one built on reciprocity, collective well-being, and care … Her beautiful and hopeful prose leaves readers feeling sated, galvanized, and keenly aware of the world around them

Vivid and poetic, and also fierce… An elegant distillation of Kimmerer’s political ideas

This wise little book asks us to escape our doomed extractive economy, learning from the cooperative circularity of living systems and the sustainable stewardship of indigenous cultures

Robin Wall Kimmerer's call to accommodate ecology and moneyless exchange into our economics is beautiful, radical and true. Her persuasive argument is a gift in itself

Lyrical, personable … invites readers into worlds of possibility … this sweet offering builds on Kimmerer’s ideas about the gift economy and how Indigenous wisdom might inform it

At once incredibly simple and incredibly profound - a real gift

The Serviceberry shows us the gift economy in action in rural and in urban settings – it is a source of powerful inspiration, and an essential read. It offers each of us a way to navigate, lovingly and practically, the dark times in which we’re living and in so doing, creating a matrix of healing

Kimmerer’s warm, inviting style feels like you are having a conversation as you pick serviceberries… the book offers a good dose of optimism and encouragement, which makes it a lovely read and a potentially transformative one

Vivid and poetic, and also fierce … an elegant distillation of some of Kimmerer’s political ideas

A wonderful little book which imagines a kinder, sharing world where everybody has enough to eat and nature is respected and cherished

The Serviceberry builds on the blend of Indigenous and western ecological thought that has made Kimmerer – unexpectedly – one of the best known environmental writers working today … The book is a call to action for ordinary people everywhere

It’s a short, tart, powerful book - much like the berry it is named after

In The Serviceberry, Robin Wall Kimmerer has given us a lucid, clear-eyed, perspective-shifting manifesto for creating gift economies and realising the abundance of the earth's gifts. She challenges bogus mindsets of scarcity while proffering joy, wonder and relationship. This is a taut, short Trojan horse of radical love and radical thinking I'll return to again and again. If those in power read and truly understand this book, our world could look very different. The Serviceberry world is the world I want to live in

An Economy of Gifts and Abundance

'This book will nourish your soul, heart, and mind' Anthony Doerr 
 
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 insures 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.” 
 
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE AUTUMN BY THE NEW YORK TIMES, GUARDIAN, TIME, OPRAH DAILY, LIT HUB, PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, BOOKPAGE

John Burgoyne

Praise for The Serviceberry

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

Compelling ... A moving meditation on what a giving tree can teach us about building a fairer society

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 b ...

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

Compelling ... A moving meditation on what a giving tree can teach us about building a fairer society

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 b ...

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

Compelling ... A moving meditation on what a giving tree can teach us about building a fairer society

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 b ...

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