If you enjoyed Braiding Sweetgrass you will want to pick this one up, it's the latest book from Botanist, poet, story teller and teacher of life, Robert Kimmerer.   It is a bold and inspiring vision for how to orient our lives around gratitude, reciprocity, and community, based on the lessons of the natural world.  It is thought provoking and uplifting.

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.”

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.

Raves & Reviews

Named a Best Book of the Fall by New York Times Book Review, Oprah Daily, Time, Lithub, BookPage, and Publishers Weekly

Named a Best Book of the Year by Scientific American, Forbes, Library Journal, and Indigo

“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

“A small book with a profound impact.” —Angeline Boulley, Good Morning America, "10 Books to Read this Native American Heritage Month

“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 Servicceberry is clear: Our individualistic, pro-competition, consumption-focused capitalist economy is inherently flawed and is leading us down a destructive and lonely path…Kimmerer creates a bighearted version of millions of little circular economies in which people learn how to foster kinship, 'recognize enoughness,' and appreciate what Mother Earth provides.” —The San Francisco Chronicle

"The Serviceberry is a psalm for the natural world and a profound exploration of how we can reframe our relationship with nature and with others through gift economies… Kimmerer’s blend of scientific observation, memoir, and philosophical reflection makesThe Serviceberry a compelling read that transcends mere ecological treatise. As our planet grapples with environmental challenges, Kimmerer’s vision of a non­extractive, reciprocal relationship with nature offers a necessary alternative." —Sierra Magazine

“The Serviceberry is bound to appeal to the readers who made Braiding Sweetgrass a more-than-2-million-copies-sold phenomenon. Like Braiding Sweetgrass, The Serviceberrydraws on traditional Native ways of caring for the land (Kimmerer is an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation). And, like Braiding Sweetgrass, it uses plain language to demonstrate truths about the way all of us live in the world.” —Minnesota Star Tribune

“A novella-length meditation on the abundance that sharing and mutual exchange can create…The Serviceberry continues a long tradition of naturalistic writing about interdependence in the wild…an impassioned call not just to return to the natural webs of exchange that are our birthright‚ but to recapture the fulfillment that stems from interdependence." —Undark Magazine

"Under a hundred pages, The Serviceberry is beautifully written with illustrations by John Burgoyne. Like me, you might pass the afternoon reading the book in one sitting, entranced by the author’s hopeful words for how to combat ecological destruction and the isolation and purposelessness so many people experience in this digitally oriented, self-interested world." —Chicago Review of Books

“Certain to be acclaimed as one of the best books of the year.” —Parade

“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

“A delightful new book that reflects on the natural world and how we can derive lessons on gratitude, reciprocity and community to flourish mutually.” —Seattle Times

"Drawing from both Indigenous knowledge and ecological science, Robin Wall Kimmerer, known for her masterwork Braiding Sweetgrass, demonstrates how serviceberries support biodiversity while having historically provided sustenance to Native American communities… Through careful observation of serviceberry ecology, Kimmerer constructs a compelling case for economic systems based on reciprocity." —Forbes