Sponsored by the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum and the Northeast Kingdom Audubon Club. Join us via Zoom for engaging conversations. Put these books on your shopping list, or borrow a copy from the Athenaeum. To reserve a copy,  contact the Athenaeum at inform@stjathenaeum.org or 802-748-8291.

 Jan. 9: Gods, Wasps, and Stranglers by Mike Shanahan

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Shanahan recounts the epic journeys of tiny fig wasps, whose eighty-million-year-old relationship with fig trees has helped them sustain more species of birds and mammals than any other trees; the curious habits of fig-dependent rhinoceros hornbills; figs’ connection to Krishna and Buddha, Jesus and Muhammad; and even their importance to Kenya’s struggle for independence.

 Feb. 13: Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

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As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowledge together to take us on “a journey that is every bit as mythic as it is scientific, as sacred as it is historical, as clever as it is wise” (Elizabeth Gilbert).

March 13: A World on a Wing by Scott Weidensaul

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In the past two decades, our understanding of the navigational and physiological feats that enable birds to cross immense oceans, fly above the highest mountains, or remain in unbroken flight for months at a stretch has exploded. What we’ve learned of these key migrations—how billions of birds circumnavigate the globe, flying tens of thousands of miles between hemispheres on an annual basis—is nothing short of extraordinary.