A New York Times Bestseller A Washington Post Bestseller A Los Angeles Times Bestseller Named a Best Essay Collection of the Decade by Literary Hub A Book Riot Favorite Summer Read of 2020 A Food Tank Fall 2020 Reading Recommendation Updated with a new introduction from Robin Wall Kimmerer the special edition of Braiding Sweetgrass reissued in honor of the fortieth anniversary of Milkweed Editions celebrates the book as an object of meaning that will last the ages. Beautifully bound with a new cover featuring an engraving by Tony Drehfal this edition includes a bookmark ribbon a deckled edge and five brilliantly colored illustrations by artist Nate Christopherson. In increasingly dark times we honor the experience that more than 350000 readers in North America have cherished about the bookgentle simple tactile beautiful even sacredand offer an edition that will inspire readers to gift it again and again spreading the word about scientific knowledge indigenous wisdom and the teachings of plants. As a botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. 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. Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist and as a woman Kimmerer shows how other living beingsasters and goldenrod strawberries and squash salamanders algae and sweetgrassoffer us gifts and lessons even if weve forgotten how to hear their voices. In reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today she circles toward a central argument that the awakening of ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the