Two beautiful clients’ books publish today. I am so proud of and . Here they are pictured with an overachieving American chestnut sapling! Let me tell you how these two books and this little tree are connected.
Conversation
These books are both - in very different ways - about connecting your heart and attention to what you can actually *do* to heal the world. They’re wonderful for fans of Robin Wall Kimmerer, Richard Powers, and Nate Blakeslee.
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Kale’s book is the story of Nora, a fragile baby polar bear born in captivity, and the dozens of people drawn to care for her. The story expands from one little bear outward through Alaska and the Arctic and becomes the story of Nora’s entire ecosystem and world.
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Kim’s book is a buoy of hope: we can save ourselves & the world from the ravages of climate change. Really, we can. The first step is following our hearts, rejecting denial, and living as our full, strange, authentic selves. Yes, seriously!! Kim’s a climate scientist! She knows!
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Here’s the common theme: both of these books take love seriously. They’re about how your tenderness changes you if you lean into it. Fully felt, your grief and sadness and obsession and wild joy are tectonic, so powerful they can literally change the land and air.
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Hence the connection to the seedlings in my office. These two books have opened my heart to wonder. They’ve made me feel okay leaning into my own weird. Into fascination and obsession and love. And by extension, SO MUCH CHESTNUT PLANTING. 🤡🌈🪴
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Join us! There’s so much room and freedom and transformative joy when you relax into love, into caring about things exactly how much your mind and body want you to. The energy the planet needs you to save first is what you’re currently wasting by trying to make yourself small.
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Oh, and speaking of obsession and derangement as engine of cultural change: NEW BOOK DEAL ALERT. Becca Rothfeld - who is emotionally healthy and not on Twitter - is on the cusp of a huge literary career as a critic and novelist, and I am THRILLED for her.
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I sent Becca's proposal out on a Tuesday night at 10pm. Within 72 hours, she had done a number of meetings and before closing a preempt with the brilliant . Such is all of our hunger right now for deep, glittering, coruscating, propulsive imagination and abandon.
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Eternal thanks to for introducing me to Becca's work by posting this AMAZING essay about Sally Rooney a while back, sending me deep down the rabbit hole and clear out the other side to this moment.
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