I came to this book after reading the "Birding While Black" essay several times at several different places on line. By Peter Frank Edwards/Redux. . Find The Home Place by Lanham, J Drew at Biblio. Hollars. Everything is so vivid. 2010. 2011. He writes about the importance of conservation but also spends some of the latter half of the book investigating his ancestors and their slave roots and what that means to him. 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. This is a BOOK. }); Dr. Lanham is a writer, poet, ecologist, and an extraordinary birder. 14 min read. Zoology 1990; PhD Forest Resources 1997) is a native of Edgefield and Aiken, South Carolina. J. In 2013, the writer, ecologist, and birder J. Drew Lanham explores the connection between trees and family trees, birds and brethren, and most importantly of all, the place where mother nature and human nature meet. var ue_sn = "www.goodreads.com"; I find myself defined these days more by what I cannot see than by what I can, Lanham writes. I'm not always drawn in to read history, so it was nice to get the history by way of an author who loves and appreciates nature so much. q("f", arguments) Drew Lanham Interview | Terrain.org, In Person: John Cotter appearing at Bank Square Books featuring Rick Koster. Hunting and Wildlife Management - WFB 3070 The descriptions & telling of his family members gave me a real picture of each of their beings. setDisplayBids: function() {}, J. Drew Lanham As a teen and twenty-something I read loads of great nature writing from the 50s and 60s, and Lanham's style is definitely reminiscent of those years. J. Drew Lanham: 'I believe the best way to begin reconnecting humanity's heart, mind, and soul to nature is for us to share our individual stories.', 'I don't expect everyone to feel the same way that I do about land. I took my time with it and really savored it. The birds, the trees, the cows, the bugs, his home place, his family - I feel like I've been to Edgefield, South Carolina. Lanham has created a book of monumental social, political, and philosophic importance. Drew Lanham. Like Drew Lanham himself, this book is big-hearted, funny, generous, and grounded in a deep love for the natural world. "ebfg_email", "ebfg_sms"]; gads.type = "text/javascript"; "ObfuscatedMarketplaceId": "A1PQBFHBHS6YH1" Publisher's Summary. In his twenty years as Clemson University faculty hes worked to understand how forest management impacts wildlife and how human beings think about nature. In one instance he recounts driving the family car into a ditch with his young sister on board. 3. Hub City Press. His focus is on the ecology of songbirds and the . As a result, I've carved, collected, and commissioned facsimiles of these birds. for(var i=0; i, The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man's Love Affair with Nature, Sparrow Envy: Field Guide to Birds and Lesser Beasts. throw new Error("could not load device-specific stylesheet : " + err.message); Our first book is ornithologist Dr. J. Drew Lanham. Fields of cotton stretching to the horizon - land worked, sweated, and suffered over for the profit of others . Enjoy this story? Lanham says he did not meet another Black birder until he was well into his 40s. For "I was in the car the first time music seemed strange: the instruments less distinct, the vocals less crisp." Yes, I was presenting the facts. He is the author of The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man's Love Affair with Nature, which received the Reed Award from the Southern Environmental Law Center and the Southern Book Prize, and was a finalist for the John Burroughs Medal.His essays and poetry can be found in Orion, Audubon, Flycatcher, and Wilderness, and in . Drew Lanham. 4. It was so interesting and so beautifully written. Review Quotes "An astute, awakening, witty, and resonant work of dissent and a profound embrace of life." . Milkweed Press, September2016 Some Gone Birds, as I call them, especially the ones that would've inhabited my southern home place, have cast spells that I can't shake. A taste of his words and his view on his world: "Before I got too deep into the woods, I might take a few minutes to lie in the pasture lane, enticing the 'buzzards' to investigate. // Drew Lanham Paperback . Drew Lanham speaking. Despite being unevenly written, I really appreciate this book and ultimately found it strongly inspiring. A native of Edgefield, South Carolina, J. A. Musings as to Why Negroes Don't Ornithologize. Really enjoyed this memoir which focuses heavily on the piece of land and place that J. 403-413 in Bartram's Living Legacy. I am, in the deepest sense, colored. From these fertile soilsof love, land, identity, family, and raceemerges The Home Place, a big-hearted, unforgettable memoir by ornithologist J. url = "https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/mobile/phone_images-9e9093f0cfddba8c2b1e815375d976a3.css"; var ue_id = "SPFNHECD47J7QKJWFWXX"; Sustaining Young Forest Communities, Springer Press. I think I expected more about nature but what I got instead was so well written and interesting that I really didn't mind in the end. ! . Inspired by birds while growing up on his family's 200-acre farm in rural Edgeeld County, South Carolina, Lanham has studied songbirds and conservation throughout an illustrious career at Clemson University, where he is Alumni Distinguished Professor of Wildlife Ecology. Being white and not from the south, I know I do not understand, but Mr. Lanham helps me to. Although I spent much of my summer time in a camp house my dad built in Maine with an outhouse, running around the woods, working in my grandparents vegetable garden, and swimming in the ocean, the majority of my childhood was spent in the suburbs of a small city in Western Massachusetts. } This is a must-read for any lover of nature or of great nature writing. Judging someone by the color of their skin is just ignorance. Perhaps the most monumental book I've read or reviewed about race relations in America. Once more, his pronouncement is flooded with double-meaning. His accounts of racism in the South are harrowing, while his passages on nature are gorgeous. But when I think that while I'm out on some back country road or deep in the isolated woods and I hear someone coming down a trail, then I wonder "how would I feel if I were black out here now?" Drew Lanham is a native of Edgefield, South Carolina, and an Alumni Distinguished Professor of Wildlife Ecology and Master Teacher at Clemson University. Drew Lanham | Natural History Institute, Listen: Prairie Warbler | This Is Love Podcast, Read: Nine New Revelations for the Black American Bird-Watcher | Vanity Fair, Read: J. Dr. J. J. "Events.SushiEndpoint": "https://unagi.amazon.com/1/events/com.amazon.csm.csa.prod", Read reviews and buy The Home Place - by J Drew Lanham (Paperback) at Target. One of the best things I read this year. } Drew Lanhams own family history, geography, nature, and race into a compelling argument for conservation and resilience., [Drew Lanhams] way of seeing and hearing and noticing the present, and the history, that birds traverse through our backyards and beyond is a revelatory way to be present to the world and to life in our time. I lay as still as I could and did my best imitation of something stinking and dead. On the whole though, I actually feel a little empty about it all, as though I was told a lot of things but still stayed mostly on the surface or maybe its just that it didnt seem to have a strong enough through line for me? 2015. Poetry needs to be read out loud and he blessed us with this treasure. In me, there is the red of miry clay, the brown of spring floods, the gold of ripening tobacco. And as Mr Lanham alludes to, slavery may be a reason why there aren't as many people of color out there birding & loving nature. 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