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The Home Place
The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man's Love Affair with Nature | J. Lanham
6 posts | 7 read | 26 to read
In me, there is the red of miry clay, the brown of spring floods, the gold of ripening tobacco. All of these hues are me; I am, in the deepest sense, colored. From these fertile soils of love, land, identity, family, and race emerges The Home Place, a big-hearted, unforgettable memoir by ornithologist and professor of ecology J. Drew Lanham. Dating back to slavery, Edgefield County, South Carolinaa place easy to pass by on the way somewhere elsehas been home to generations of Lanhams. In The Home Place, readers meet these extraordinary people, including Drew himself, who over the course of the 1970s falls in love with the natural world around him. As his passion takes flight, however, he begins to ask what it means to be the rare bird, the oddity. By turns angry, funny, elegiac, and heartbreaking, The Home Place is a remarkable meditation on nature and belonging, at once a deeply moving memoir and riveting exploration of the contradictions of black identity in the rural Southand in America today.
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quietlycuriouskate
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Pickpick

Lovely, lovely book! Not that it's all sweetness and light (try "Birding While Black" on for size). It's a natural history of his family, their origins, and their South Carolina habitat that made him an ornithologist and poet. I first encountered J.DL on Krista Tippett's "On Being" podcast and warmed to him at once. It was a delight to "catch up" again with this book.

LauraBeth I‘m looking forward to reading this! 3y
Tamra It really is a wonderful memoir! 3y
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Tamra
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Nature, race, family, history, land ethics, all written in a most beautiful fashion. Poetic & Passionate. It was a joy to read and I will be dipping in & out of it, using excerpts for my ethics courses. This is not perfectly written or edited, but the gorgeous prose and message shines thru. I really hope Lanham publishes another book! A big thank you to @Jason_Roland on @ReadingEnvy podcast for putting this on my radar.

Leftcoastzen Sounds wonderful 7y
Tamra @Leftcoastzen It‘s one I won‘t put back on the shelf any time soon. I like to spy favorite books on my night stand. 😉 7y
Tamra This also reminds why my son is not getting a BB gun. He recounts he & his sister taking turns shooting each other “in the ass.” I laughed & snorted at that passage. Very funny! 7y
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ReadingEnvy Ooh I still need to pick this one up but I always trust Jason's taste! 7y
Tamra @ReadingEnvy yes! There was another he mentioned in an earlier podcast, something about a nature & observing a yearly cycle that escapes me that I want to track down. I bet I even TBRd it but my list is so long! I‘ll look thru show notes. (edited) 7y
ReadingEnvy But I think you're remembering 7y
Tamra @ReadingEnvy that‘s it and it‘s even marked TBR! Thank you! 😊 7y
108 likes9 stack adds8 comments
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Jason_Roland
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Finished this a while back, but just now reviewing. This book was beautiful. The descriptions of his country life, thoughts on nature and being one of the only African American birders was just fantastic. Please read this book. It is going in my top 20 of all time great reads for now.

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Jason_Roland
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Reading this fantastic memoir that is set one county over from me. Fitting in perfectly with my summer nature book reads. The book is dedicated "For all who wonder and love the land." How can you not fall in love with that?

saresmoore This sounds really interesting! 7y
Jason_Roland @saresmoore I think you would love it! Short book, read half of it already just today, but wow, I am so in book love with it right now! 7y
saresmoore I'm convinced! 7y
ReadingEnvy Sounds like you. 7y
2 likes1 stack add4 comments
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bookshopsc
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Lanham has written an unforgettable memoir about growing up in rural Edgefield County, South Carolina. With gorgeous (sometimes heartbreaking) prose, he describes the full-sensory experience of the natural world around him—the same land that his ancestors were forced to toil. His essays on identity & belonging are powerful, & his passion is inspiring. Without an emotional connection to nature, how can we possibly be committed to saving it? -S.B.

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