Enjoying Outside, Inside - Reading Locally
Amy Boyer • April 25, 2023
The Berryessa Snow Mountain National Monument and its environs and people have inspired considerable literature. Reading any of these books will give you new perspective on our area, its ecology, and its stewardship.
You've probably seen the first two featured in the Tuleyome newsletter, but they bear mentioning again.
Eldridge Moores, Judith Moores, Marc Hoshovsky, Peter Schiffman, and Bob Schneider. Exploring the Berryessa Region: A Geology, Nature, and History Tour. Based on the tours that Eldridge and Judy Moores led, this road guide takes you on a tour from Winters, along Lake Berryessa, through Pope Valley, to Lake Hennessey, and back. Along the way you'll learn about the Coast Ranges from the ground up—and have a chance to visit a winery or two.
Robin Lee Carlson. The Cold Canyon Fire Journals: Green Shoots and Silver Linings in the Ashes. If you know fire is an important part of the landscape but miles of charred chaparral sink your heart, this book gives hope, with colorful sketches, accurate fire ecology, and first-hand observation of post-fire changes at Cold Canyon.
María Meléndez, How Long She'll Last in this World. In this PEN-nominated volume, birth, motherhood, death, controlled burns, and manzanitas intertwine in sharply observed, sharply questioning poems. The Sacramento Valley and other places interconnect and open out in unexpected ways, beautiful and stark.
M. Kat Anderson. Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California's Natural Resources. The least local of all these books is nonetheless one of the most essential to understanding this place. It provides a detailed look at the history and traditions of stewardship by the peoples native to California, with insight into culturally important flora and fauna, how sustainability was woven into Indigenous cultures, and the complex roles of fire.
Mike Madison, Blithe Tomato, A Sense of Order, and others. Mike Madison is the Wendell Berry of the Sacramento Valley. A small farmer and prolific essayist, he muses on how our way of living on the land shapes us, as well as how the economics of farming work—or don't—in living sustainably.
Greg Sarris, Mabel McKay: Weaving the Dream. A biography of noted Pomo basket weaver and medicine woman Mabel McKay that travels from her early years with relatives in Rumsey, through Santa Rosa, and back to Rumsey, bringing alive her relations to people and place.
-Amy Boyer
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