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My 2023 Favorite Read

January 14, 2024 //  by Janet Grant//  11 Comments

As has been my tradition for several years, I enjoy starting out the new year with reflections on my favorite read in the year before. The books (or book, as is the case this year) don’t have to be releases from that year, and seldom are, actually. They’re simply the books that pleased my heart and mind.

Braiding Sweetgrass Shimmers with Beauty

With that in mind, the big winner of my heart and mind in 2023 is Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer. Don’t let the subtitle put you off, this book is a thing of beauty and the wisdom, knowledge, and teachings are spoonfed to you with a deliciousness that makes you lick the spoon.

The best place to start to grasp what makes Braiding Sweetgrass special is to know who the author is. A botanist, poet, and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, Robin brings a poet’s observant eye to the book and offers us a fragrant bouquet of beauty on every page. Her love and knowledge of plants shines through in such a way that, after reading the book, you’ll never see, for example, a wild, heart-shaped strawberry the same way. Her perspective as a Native American soaks the book in respect for nature and teaches us how to see plants as akin to us in their own kind of personhood, with frailty and strength combined.

Why the Book Was My Favorite Read

Everything about Braiding Sweetgrass made it a favorite read and sang all the right notes for me.

Structure

From the structure of the book, which felt like the author braided the words and ideas together with careful attention, to the way she neatly constructed every chapter was worth admiring. She would start out a chapter with a fetching opening and then draw a perfect circle with her writing as she explored the theme. That circle always closed the loop by ending up where the chapter began. It’s hard to do that well, let alone do it every chapter.

Word Choice

And the pictures her words conveyed were exquisite. Such as, “The ground where I sit with Sitka Grandmother is deep with needles, soft with centuries of humus; the trees are so old that my lifetime compared to theirs is just a bird-song long.”

Or this description of the rainforests of our Northern West Coast:

The canopy is a multi-layered sculpture of vertical complexity from the lowest moss on the forest floor to the wisps of lichen hanging high in the treetops, raggedy and uneven from the gaps produced by centuries of windthrow, disease, and storms. This seeming chaos belies the tight web of interconnections between them all, stitched with filaments of fungi, silk of spiders, and silver threads of water. Alone is a word without meaning in this forest.”

Exploring the landscape after a major snowstorm:

“In the winter brilliance, the only sounds are the rub of my jacket against itself, the soft ploompf of my snowshoes, the rifle-shot crack of trees bursting their hearts in the freezing temperature, and the beating of my own heart…The sky is painfully blue. The snowfields sparkle below like shattered glass. This  last storm has sculpted the drifts like surf on a frozen sea….I walk alongside fox tracks, vole tunnels, and a bright-red spatter in the snow framed by the imprint of hawk wings.”

Love of the Land

Her descriptions of different plants convey a profound appreciation for each one.

While mucking about in a lake, observing the plants:

“Mired in weeds, I rested for a bit surrounded by water shield, fragrant water lily, rushes, wild calls, and the eccentric flowers known variously as yellow pond lily, bullhead lily, spatterdock, and brandybottle. That last name, rarely heard, is perhaps most apt, as the yellow flowers sticking up from the dark water emit a sweet alcoholic scent. it made me wish I had brought a bottle of wine.

“Once the showy brandybottle flowers have accomplished their goal of attracting pollinators, they bend below the surface for several weeks, suddenly reclusive while their ovaries swell. When the seeds are mature, the stalks straighten again and lift above the water the fruit–a curiously flask-shaped pod with a brightly colored lid that looks like its namesake, a miniature brandy cask about the size of a shot glass. I’ve never witnessed it myself, but I’m told that the seeds pop dramatically from the pod onto the surface, earning their other name, spatterdock.”

Pick a page, any page, and be prepared to be gobsmacked by the author’s language, knowledge of plants, and love of it all. This is a book to read slowly so as to savor all its richness.

Not a Perfect Book

I did think she presented the ways of the Indigenous people as the solution to our ecological conundrum. And certainly we immigrants haven’t expressed much honor or appreciation for the wealth of our country’s nature. We are consumption-oriented. But I think she isn’t realistic that the answers all lie in the Native Americans’ view of our world. If their population were as large as ours during the time they were caretakers of the land, I wonder what state nature would be in today? Most certainly better than in the hands of us who saw the earth as something to exploit rather than replenish. But her view took on the characteristics of a diatribe when I reached the closing chapters.

The Book’s Publishing History

Braiding Sweetgrass is one of those rare books whose admirers have grown as time goes on rather than readers losing interest. Six years after the book was first published, it made the New York Times bestseller list. It had no big marketing budget when it released, no major reviews to sing its praises. It has remained on that list for three years because its audience can’t help but tell  others about this paean to nature.

Ten years after publication, it has sold two million copies.

If you’re searching for a book with masterful writing, passion for the subject, and a different way of seeing all that God has created, then my 2023 favorite read is the next book you should pick up. You’re welcome.

You’re Turn: What Was Your 2023 Favorite Read?

Now it’s your turn to tell us what 2023 book(s) swept you away in ways you never anticipated when you picked it up. Your favorite read is…

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Category: Blog, Nonfiction, Reading, Writing CraftTag: beauty of language, best read 2023, Braiding Sweetgrass, what's the best book you've read

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  1. Andrew Budek-Schmeisser

    January 15, 2024 at 1:09 am

    Not sure I had a favourite read this year. I used to draw inspiration and strength and purpose from stories, but those days have passed. I’m not sure why I read now, but can’t NOT read.

    Movies are different, and I can heartily recommend Te Ata, the story of a young Chickasaw woman who became the voice of her tribe’s living history through the 20th century.

    Barb’s an Indian (her term; she doesn’t like Native American), and sees nature as duality, a kind of merciless beauty. There is lyricism embodied, yes, but nonetheless the need for dominion.

    I guess it counts more where you are
    than what’s been writ, and read;
    there are more places, yeah, by far
    where Mother Nature’ll kill you dead
    with a chuckle and a smile,
    and a fer-de-lance or two;
    a nature stroll becomes a trial,
    and rushing stream a witches’ brew,
    and even now, in our conceit
    we know there lies disaster
    beyond where man and wildness meet,
    and must remain the master
    of what we dimly comprehend,
    the forces that would bring our end.

    Reply
    • Janet Grant

      January 15, 2024 at 12:06 pm

      Nature most certainly is a fierce beast. Which the author of Braiding Sweetgrass does write about, but her goal was to engage the reader as a caretaker of creation, not its subject. I think most of us have seen Mother Nature’s fierce, unrelenting side, and it’s deadly.

      Reply
  2. Janice Laird

    January 15, 2024 at 2:29 pm

    Really loved Sarah Sundin’s “Sound of Light,” and why? Because I was on vacation and had time to savor it, AND we were in Denmark! I had a lot of fun finding the real historical sites mentioned in the book, including the real Little Mermaid. Truly, the Danes’ rescue of its Jewish population in 1943 remains an inspiring story.

    Reply
    • Janet Grant

      January 16, 2024 at 4:07 pm

      I love Sarah’s books, too.

      Reply
  3. Jody Evans

    January 15, 2024 at 4:23 pm

    I have a hard time picking favorites, but the one that popped into my mind is Words by Ginny Ytrupp. As a mother who adopted a traumatized 12-year-old girl in 2007, I appreciated the realistic handling of the subject matter. Even more than that, I loved the way the characters were voiced. This may, in fact, be my favorite Christian novel of all time. Besides that, I picked the book up the day before a scheduled coaching session with Ginny at the WCCW conference, so I was doubly blessed to meet the author just as I was falling in love with her characters and storytelling.

    Reply
    • Janet Grant

      January 16, 2024 at 4:07 pm

      Words was such a special novel by Ginny, who is a lovely person.

      Reply
  4. Kristen Joy Wilks

    January 16, 2024 at 12:52 pm

    That sounds like such an amazing book, wow!
    I had several favorites from this year:
    Tress of the Emerald Sea–Brandon Sanderson
    All That Really Matters—Nicole Deese
    Walking In Tall Weeds—Robin W. Pearson
    The Shadow of What Was Lost–James Islington
    The Siren of Sussex—Mimi Matthews
    But if I had to pick only one . . . it would probably be
    Yumi and the Nightmare Painter by Brandon Sanderson!

    Reply
    • Janet Grant

      January 16, 2024 at 4:08 pm

      Do tell us why the Sanderson book won top billing, Kristen.

      Reply
      • Kristen Joy Wilks

        January 18, 2024 at 4:17 pm

        Well, it was just delightful in every way! It read like YA and I LOVE the fast pacing and nononsense characterization of books for teens. At least well done books for teens, ha! The artwork within the book was just mind boggling (he self-published and hired an artist for the book and just told them to knock themselves out, he would pay them!) and the battles with monsters were wonderful added to the deeper battle with the monsters within and the romance was sweet and satisfying. I zipped through it fast and enjoyed every page. I didn’t pause to laugh at the wrong spots (writing gone wrong) and laughed at the right places (The Noodle Pupil is the name of a noodle shop, ha!) and the setting based on ancient Korea and modern Japan were painted so beautifully. Characters walked out of the story changed and my heart was happy when I closed the book.

  5. Terri Thompson

    January 16, 2024 at 7:30 pm

    I couldn’t agree more about Braiding Sweetgrass! I just finished it a couple of months ago and absolutely loved it. I also thoroughly enjoyed several of Madeleine L’Engle books, fiction and non fiction.

    Reply
  6. Shelli Littleton

    January 19, 2024 at 5:36 pm

    My husband and I really loved On Moonberry Lake by Holly Varni. Her character development was fabulous.

    Reply

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