MARCH Public Book Club

The MARCH Book Club seeks a community of readers interested in environmental writing in all of its forms. From nature writing to eco memoirs to climate fiction and everything in-between, the MARCH book club is a place to think deeply about our relationship to place.

FACILITATOR
The book club is facilitated by MARCH Director Jillian Sayre. Jillian is Associate Professor of English at Rutgers-Camden, where she teaches classes on literature and literary theory, including environmental literature. Jillian is interested in how environmental writing encourages us to see and be in the world differently, as well as how we can develop and participate in local responses to climate change and environmental justice.

THE SELECTION
The first selection for the MARCH Book Club is Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses by Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of the bestseller Braiding Sweetgrass. Dr. Kimmerer is Professor of Environmental Biology and founding Director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment at SUNY. In Gathering Moss, Dr. Kimmerer teaches about mosses and their communities but also encourages readers to think differently about their own relationships to the natural world. What can we learn about ourselves and the world around us by looking closely and thinking carefully about parts of our environment that we tend to ignore or take for granted?