Deepening Your Connection to Place

A reading list

One of the ways I’ve been able to deepen my own understanding about the human connection to landscape is through reading (and teaching) about the connections of others.

When I spoke with Vermont Public Radio the other day about the concept of solastalgia - the feeling of distress at witnessing the environmental degradation of a landscape- I offered a reading list folks could consult for solace and deeper thinking.

Here it is:

• 🐦‍ Vesper Flights, by Helen MacDonald: “A gorgeous book about migration, change, nostalgia for old countrysides, and McDonald's own life.”

• 🌱 A Small Place, by Jamaica Kincaid: “A fierce book about the way Kincaid was affected by the landscape and tourist economy of Antigua and the inherent problem of tourism.” (Check out her book My Garden (Book) on her first Vermont garden.)

• 📖 Speak, Memory, by Vladimir Nabokov: “A book on displacement and estrangement from his Russian boyhood. The most exquisitely written book I know.”

• 📷 Hold Still, by Sally Mann: “The famed photographer examines the beauty and cost of her deep Southern roots.”

• 📒 Men We Reaped, by Jesmyn Ward: “A memoir where you can feel the heat and pressure of rural Louisiana pressing down on Ward and the men she writes about.”

• 🏞️ The Lost Words, by Robert MacFarlane and Jackie Morris: “A look at words related to landscape that are disappearing from the imaginative play and lives of children.”

• 🌊 Upstream, by Mary Oliver: “A stunning collection of lyric essays, many about her connection to Provincetown, Mass. and watching the world change.”

• 🦅 The Home Place by J. Drew Lanham: “A memoir of place by the famed ornithologist."

• 🌱 Ecology of a Cracker Childhood by Janisse Ray: “A memoir of Georgia's longleaf pine, family, and growing up in a junkyard.”