Robin Wall Kimmerer excels at writing books that connect nature to human nature. In this short book, she connects the gifts the natural world offers to human gift economies. From there, she considers our capitalist economy and it's environmental toll and then circles back to what nature can teach us about our relationship with things and with others. As always thoughtful and thought provoking, Kimmerer's is an automatic read for me. Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced copy in return for my honest opinion.

Restraint. Respect. Reciprocity.
These three words sum up this delightful book on gift economics. We need to have everyone on earth hear this message!

Robin Wall Kimmerer's The Serviceberry ponders about our gift economy using something as simple as berries to relay the concept. This book weaves indigenous knowledge, ecology, philosophy, and sociology together to model how relationships of reciprocity and a give-and-take can benefit us all, rather than hoarding and selfish interests.

Thank you to NetGalley and Scribner for the ARC.

This was an easy read but it was incredibly impactful. I've never really thought of giving and sharing as an economic model but having read this book, I can see how world changing sharing could be. Indigenous practices are so intuitive and this is no exception.

If you are looking for a cozy, inspiring, and quick read for this holiday season, you have got to read The Serviceberry. Kimmerer is such a great essayist and weaves a tapestry with these writings on "gift economy" and its correlation to the berry. Each short essay had pieces that struck me, and the book, though short, carries a lot of impact.

Seriously, this is the perfect read for the holiday season. It's excellent.

Thanks to Netgalley and Scribner for the e-ARC!

I love Robin Wall Kimmerer. I loved the ideas she presented here and the characteristic beautiful language that she uses to present it. I only wished there was more.

She has such a way with words! I loved the concept of a mutual gift economy with nature and plants growing and extrapolating into the need for a gift economy in how we support each others work and efforts. Working for a nonprofit, I can see the reflection of this mutual give and take in how we support other organizations and receive support and funding from them in return. This book takes a concept as simple as sharing berries and makes a case for the end of capitalism as we know it. If that isn’t magic, what is?

I was so excited to see Robin Wall Kimmerer expanding on her essay in Essence magazine of the same name. Friends, she did not disappoint. The Serviceberries is an approachable, accessible book that will remain as relevant and as thought provoking as its predecessor “Braiding Sweetgrass” still is at 10+ years after its release. It should be required reading alongside any financial literacy curriculum, in my opinion.

I have pre-ordered my copy with Birchbark Books and encourage anyone and everyone to do the same. This book is ripe for holiday reading!

Take some time and enjoy this one.

Tokšá aké, book friends


Special thanks to Robin Wall Kimmerer for sharing this gift, Scribner and NetGalley for the opportunity to review an eARC. It was a complete joy to read; a breathe of fresh air.

I’ll
Update this review when I post to social, 2 weeks prior to it’s pub date, as requested.

The Serviceberry is a lovely and powerful essay on reciprocity and the potential of a gift economy in the face of our unsustainable current models— illustrated by the analogous natural systems that create the serviceberry and its ecosystem. It’s a timely message—thought-provoking and inspiring.

Astounding and thoughtful. I want to be guided by Robin for the rest of my life. Serviceberries are my favorite berry and I have picked them for years. I enjoyed learning more about them and especially from this author. This should be essential reading for all.

This essay was such a revelation about a gift economy. It makes so much sense; so much a book of hopefulness. I love Kimmerer’s voice.

What a lovely book! Using serviceberries as a central touchpoint, Robin Wall Kimmerer writes about interconnection, reciprocity, kindness — and the fact that our resources are limited, and we must give, share, and connect. The serviceberry tree produces (apparently) sweet, juicy berries, which are eaten by woodland creatures, who distribute the seeds as they roam.  Distributing the seeds this way ensures both the continuation of the serviceberry species and the animals that feed on it.  Neither is self-sufficient. It’s a lovely and timely message, well told.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Reading Robin Wall Kimmerer's prose is something I find meditative, thoughtful, informative and inspiring. Similar to Braiding Sweetgrass, in The Serviceberry, a short and approachable read, Kimmerer shares her perspective of how things could be if there were some small and not-so-small shifts in how individuals and groups act in their everyday interactions and how they relate to the natural world around them. The line drawings that are interspersed in the book are similarly poignant in it's understated simplicity. There's a lot of food for thought in this slim volume and I hope it starts many conversations. Many thanks to NetGalley and Scribner for the e-arc.

Thanks to #Simon & Schuster and #NetGalley for letting me read an eGalley version of the book in exchange for my honest review.

I loved [book:Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants|17465709] but it is a little long and wandering; this book is shorter -- really a long essay -- and more focused, which is very helpful, because it needs to reach a wide audience.

Taking the Serviceberry (known by many names, Saskatoon, Juneberry, Shadbush, Sugerplum among them) as an example of, as the subtitle says "Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World," Kimmerer describes an economy that might replace our current disastrous extractive economy with a more eco-friendly gift economy.

She has written about Native American societies and their use of the gifts from the land in Braiding Sweetgrass, and she returns to that theme, but this time she is focused not only on the natural world, but also on the science of economics. There is now an emerging ecological economics theory that suggests scarcity is not the driving force of economics in our world; it is actually a construct, and it is not serving us well.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. It's a quick read and beautifully illustrated, but it also provides a lot of food for thought. Hopefully it will inspire many to become involved in a different relationship to the Earth and each other. Pre-order it now. Publication date is Nov. 19 -- just in time for holiday giving.

This meditate quick read left me looking forward to finally seeing serviceberries on my tree in the backyard. Once I finished reading the book, I looked up a recipe for serviceberry pie. Informative and appreciative read about the history of the Serviceberry, a tree I picked up for free during Arbor Day two years ago that is growing quickly, and hopefully will be feeding the bird next summer.

This book was short but clear in its message. It directly indicts the scarcity mindset as a cultural construct of capitalism and shows how antithetical to nature this mindset is. As our climate catastrophe grows nearer, the book is timely and urgent. The guidance is simple and easy to understand "Sustain the ones who sustain you and the Earth will last forever." I found the framing of "the cannibalization of life for accumulation of money" particularly compelling. I don't think this book will create a groundswell of change, but for those of us with our minds open, it will help to move us forward in the right direction.

I will return and update this review to include links to public social posts two weeks before publication date, as requested.

Delighted to get my hands on something new from Kimmerer! This is a compact book that you can read very, very quickly—and then think about long after you turn the final page.

Robin Wall Kimmerer did it again! What an absolutely crucial essay. Everyone should read The Serviceberry!

Touching on themes of abundance, reciprocity, and gift economies that were mentioned in her previous books, Kimmerer explores capitalism and economics through the lens of a Serviceberry. Seviceberry, or Saskatoon as it's often called where I live in Oregon, is a plant that gives freely and in abundance. Kimmerer explores how we as people might do so too. Through farm stands, Little Free Libraries, helping out neighbors, and love the idea grows throughout the pages.

I didn't expect to be brought to tears by a book barely 100 pages long, but just like she did with both Braiding Sweetgrass and Gathering Moss I found myself crying. How have we let it get this far? How do we continue to fail humanity as a whole? Kimmerer reminds us that it's not just "the System" that is doing it to us, but that "the System" is run by real people. People with names, people with addresses.

I highly recommend picking up a physical copy so you can see the gorgeous illustrations by John Burgoyne! What a gem of a book, that I hope makes it into every library, every economics classroom, and is shared and gifted far and wide.

A short and sweet look at how we as individuals and communities can disrupt the hold that capitalism has on seemingly everything. I love Kimmerer's comparisons to the Serviceberry trees and how they help circulate resources for the betterment of all species around it instead of hoarding like capitalistic economies demand. It made for a lovely reading experience as she explored how we as people and neighbors can share our own excess and expect help in return in a form yet unknown to us at present. "I store my [extra] meat in the belly of my brother" was such a good way to encapsulate the understanding of community as protective and comforting when we care for each other in a way that ensures all are fed because one is successful. This book was beautifully meditative and has given me a lot to consider in my daily life going forward. Very good for readers who loved Braiding Sweetgrass or Elizabeth Gilbert.

The Serviceberry is a very short book, but it manages to capture maybe the essential conflict underlying most of our problems (is that hyperbole? Maybe! But I don't think so!). Namely, the discord between gift economies and market capitalism. One encourages reciprocity and care for collective wellbeing and one....does not. Capitalism, being profit-driven, encourages privatization of resources, hoarding, artificial scarcity, and competition between individuals. It financially incentivizes pollution of communal property, like air and water, and necessitates growth for growth's sake, not to sustaining ecosystems (both social and environmental). Rather than collapse into futility, however, Kimmerer highlights some strategies for integrating gift economies into capitalism; I particularly appreciated her ode to public libraries as a model for this.
Ultimately, this is an encouraging and convincing call for individual action to move the needle towards reciprocity and care for the collective. A pessimist might say it's not enough, given the political hopelessness of abandoning capitalism, but Kimmerer intentionally avoids doing so. To motivate change, there has to be some hope for meaningful results. She shows us it's possible, if we can value and accept the scale at which like minded individuals can make an impact.
Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the arc!