Nature in Colour Book Group: Undrowned
There's a brand new book group in the Lighthouse family! The Nature in Colour book group is run by Jess and will meet every six weeks to discuss books centering nature, environment, climate and ecology written by writers of colour.
Our place in different landscapes, the ties between us and the non-human world, and how these connections are viewed, controlled or depicted, are all framed by structural oppression and bias. Writers of colour are forced to challenge (and have long done so) confining models for what it means to write 'about the environment', bringing interdependence, issues of justice and radical change to the fore.
For our very first meeting on June 6th, we'll be reading Undrowned by Alexis Pauline Gumbs.
We'll be reading fiction, non-fic and much in-between. The book group is primarily virtual but we'll arrange a couple of in-person gatherings through the year to give us a chance to build connections and get to know each other.
As with all Lighthouse book groups, this is a free, safe and encouraging space in which to be inspired by each other and the books we read. Please order your copy of Undrowned from the bookshop - which supports the books and helps us cover the cost of running bookclub - get a 10% discount using code MUSHROOM-LIKE-TENDRILS If you're broke please do use our pay-it-forward fund (the code is SOLIDARITY-BOOK-LOVE at checkout) or support your local library.
About the book:
Undrowned is a book-length meditation for social movements and our whole species based on the subversive and transformative guidance of marine mammals. Our aquatic cousins are queer, fierce, protective of each other, complex, shaped by conflict, and struggling to survive the extractive and militarized conditions our species has imposed on the ocean. Gumbs employs a brilliant mix of poetic sensibility and naturalist observation to show what they might teach us, producing not a specific agenda but an unfolding space for wondering and questioning. From the relationship between the endangered North Atlantic Right Whale and Gumbs’s Shinnecock and enslaved ancestors to the ways echolocation changes our understandings of “vision” and visionary action, this is a masterful use of metaphor and natural models in the service of social justice.
For more inspiration, check out our Nature in Colour reading list for Earth Day 2022 here. A few of these books are likely to appear as reads in the book group!
