The Desert Year

Written by: Joseph Wood Krutch

First line: Scenery, as such, never meant much to me. 

Why you should read this book: A New England academic, captivated by his scant passing views of the Sonoran Desert, dedicates a sabbatical year and change to living among the saguaros so as to learn the secrets of this strange landscape. Meandering yet focused, the narrative begins afresh with every chapter, with some observation of plant, animal, terrain, or weather serving as a springboard to the author's thoughts about life on earth (human and otherwise), philosophy, sociology, spirituality, along with biology, zoology, botany, and any other scholarly pursuit that springs to mind. In the tradition of the amateur American naturalist, Krutch endeavors to sit with his environment until it makes itself known to him, and then, in his professorial capacity, turns to books and experts to make further sense of the revelations granted to those who learn to love the land as they love themselves. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: I guess if you didn't like Walden when you were in college, you won't like this. 

 

The Artist's Way

Written by: Julia Cameron

First line: When people ask me what I do, I usually answer, "I'm a writer-director and I teach these creativity workshops."

Why you should read this book: You should read this book if you are a "blocked artist," i.e. a person who wants to find fulfillment in creative endeavors, but for whatever reason, can't seem to create the things you want to create. This twelve-week course in creativity has been around for decades and helped guide countless artists through various obstacles to their eventual success, in many cases, to very great success. With numerous activities, writing exercises, words of encouragement, and tough love deconstructions of the psychological barriers that hold us back, it offers an almost hundred percent guarantee of meaningful change of one sort or another for those who follow its specific but simple guidelines; I was certainly skeptical to start, but about halfway through the program I did start to experience some of the promised "magic" of the program. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: I personally had some difficulty with its dependence on a "manifesting abundance" doctrine that I'm afraid feels inherently classist, and I didn't really find a way to completely embrace the discussion of a "God" that rewards artists. Also, some of the writing exercises are psychologically extremely difficult.

Food of the Gods: The Search for the Original Tree of Knowledge, A Radical History of Plants, Drugs, and Human Evolution

Written by: Terence McKenna

First line: A specter is haunting planetary culture—the specter of drugs. 

Why you should read this book: I suppose this will be the last of my COVID reads, but this is another book I've owned for close to two decades without cracking it open. McKenna's now-classic treatise on  psilocybin (magic mushrooms) and related plants delineates his theories on how they guided the development of human consciousness, archaeological evidence for their importance to ancient civilizations, how and why psychedelic experiences fell out of favor as civilization "progressed," what was lost in the transition, what was found when westerners rediscovered them, and what this all means for the future of our species. The book is, at times, heartbreakingly prescient in its discussion of the forces that continue to suppress the knowledge and practices that could heal humans, individually and as an animal species connected to a vegetable world, and yet containing kernels of hope that seem to pop every time another city, state, or country relaxes restrictions on marijuana and psychedelics. 

Why you shouldn't read this book: You are a cryptofascist, or you work for the CIA, or you have a financial interest in the alcohol industry, or you really fell for that lazy D.A.R.E. information someone spewed into your head in the '80s or '90s.