Nature Book Club: September

Please note: This month we’re meeting at Mellody Farm Nature Preserve, not Brushwood Center.

The Brushwood Nature Book Club is a space to talk about and explore nature literature in a friendly environment. Each meeting includes discussion, creative writing, and/or art activities to engage with the themes of the chosen book, led by Brushwood’s Poet-in-Residence Kathryn Haydon, and writer-artist Megan Donahue.  

Our September book is Where the Deer and the Antelope Play, by Nick Offerman. “The pastoral observations of one ignorant American who loves to walk outside,” this book is a humorous and rousing set of literal and figurative sojourns as well as a mission statement about comprehending, protecting, and truly experiencing the outdoors, fueled by a conversation Offerman had with Wendell Berry that inspired three journeys he undertook in 2019 and 2020.

Nature Book Club: August

Please note: This month we’re meeting at Mellody Farm Nature Preserve, not Brushwood Center.

The Brushwood Nature Book Club is a space to talk about and explore nature literature in a friendly environment. Each meeting includes discussion, creative writing, and/or art activities to engage with the themes of the chosen book, led by Brushwood’s Poet-in-Residence Kathryn Haydon, and writer-artist Megan Donahue.  

This summer, we’re revisiting some of the classics of American nature literature and exploring how they resonate today. 

Our August book is My First Summer in the Sierra, by John Muir. It was published in 1911, based on field notes from an 1869 trip Muir made to the Sierra Nevada, traveling with a shepherd and flock of sheep. The book was influential in popularizing the (complicated) idea of an American wilderness, and was crucial in building public support for the preservation of Yosemite National Park. 

Nature Book Club: July

Please note: This month we’re meeting at Mellody Farm Nature Preserve, not Brushwood Center.

The Brushwood Nature Book Club is a space to talk about and explore nature literature in a friendly environment. Each meeting includes discussion, creative writing, and/or art activities to engage with the themes of the chosen book, led by Brushwood’s Poet-in-Residence Kathryn Haydon, and writer-artist Megan Donahue.  

This summer, we’re revisiting some of the classics of American nature literature and exploring how they resonate today. 

Our July book is A Sand County Almanac: Sketches Here and There, by Aldo Leopold. Through science, history, humor and prose, Leopold uses A Sand County Almanac and its call for a land ethic to communicate the true connection between people and the natural world. First published in 1949, it became one of the most venerated conservation books in the 20th century.