I Love Our Land

"Find out why our land is important, and how people can protect it"--Provided by publisher.

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER The boundary- and genre-bending non-fiction collection from the Giller-longlisted, GG-shortlisted and Canada Reads– winning author of Jonny Appleseed. “The land and its elements are my aunties calling me home, into that centre point which is a nowhere, by which I mean a place that English has no words for, is an everywhere, is a bingo hall, is a fourth plane, is an ocean.” Making Love with the Land is a startling, challenging, uncompromising look at what it means to live as an Indigenous person “in the rupture” between identities. In these ten unique, heart-piercing non-fiction pieces, award-winning writer Joshua Whitehead illuminates the com­plex moment we’re living through now, in which Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples are navigating new and old ideas about “the land.” He asks: What is our relationship and responsi­bility towards it? And how has the land shaped ideas, histories, words, our very bodies? Intellectually thrilling and emotionally captivat­ing, this book is a love song for the world—and for the library of stories to be found where body meets land, waiting to be unearthed and summoned into word.

A remarkable story of survival and of a risky escape out of the iron curtain to the open world, with poetic brilliance, the Leave The Land You Love, Love The Land You Live is really a memoir that will never steal away from your mind and heart. Leaving the Vietnam fatherland he loves, the former home-arrested resident of Danang lingered as a boat people refugee in Hong Kong transit centers for 15 months. The author finally settles down as an information technology senior engineer in Baltimore, Maryland to love the new land he lives in.

A moving exploration of presence and place told through the stories of small-scale farmers who, despite intense adversity, continue caring for their land Love for the Land explores the power and potential of people-place relationships. Through clear and compelling prose, it elevates the virtues of imagination, affection, and fidelity--concepts promoted by farmer-writer Wendell Berry--and shows how they motivate small- and mid-scale farmers to care for the land, even in the face of adversity. Paying particular attention to farmland loss from suburban sprawl, rampant agricultural consolidation, and, for farmers of color, racial injustice, Brooks Lamb reckons with the harsh realities that these farmers face. Drawing from in-depth interviews and hands-on experiences in two changing rural communities, he shares stories and sacrifices from dozens of farmers, local leaders, agricultural service providers, and land conservationists. Lamb's rural roots and farming background enable him to cultivate honest, trusting connections with the farmers he engages, yielding raw and powerful insights. Time and again, compelling evidence reveals that stewardship virtues encourage people to live and act as devoted caretakers. With a refreshing, accessible, and engaging approach, Lamb argues that these resilient and often overlooked farmers show rural and urban people alike a way forward, one that serves people, places, and the planet. That path is rooted in love for the land.

In Living in the Tall Grass: Poems of Reconciliation, Chief Stacey Laforme gives a history of his people through stories and poetry to let Canadians see through the eyes of Indigenous people. Chief Laforme's universal message is, "We should not have to change to fit into society the world should adapt to embrace our uniqueness."

These essays range over several subject areas - longer essays about Southern heritage and history, pieces regarding the present assault on the symbols of that heritage, short semi-biographical items on diverse figures who have played a role in Southern history, various reviews.

From one of our finest writers and leading environmental thinkers, a powerful book about how the land we share divides us—and how it could unite us Today, we are at a turning point as we face ecological and political crises that are rooted in conflicts over the land itself. But these problems can be solved if we draw on elements of our tradition that move us toward a new commonwealth—a community founded on the well-being of all people and the natural world. In this brief, powerful, timely, and hopeful book, Jedediah Purdy explores how we might begin to heal our fractured and contentious relationship with the land and with each other.