I’m currently (very slowly) ready Annie Proulx’ book Barkskins. It is really something. I like her writing a lot, even though it exhausts me. It is also completely fascinating and unrelentingly rigorous. Amazing word usage.
Barkskins is Proulx’ epic work on the origins of the US, specifically in the Northeastern part of the US/Canada area. There is a lot about the impact of the Europeans on the Indigenous populations – again, as rigorously true as possible. So it’s a very negative story.
I’m also reading these other books, to help with that internal pain caused by reading Barkskins:
Louise Erdrich: Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country – so wonderful
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz: An Indigenous People’s History of the United States – great clarity and information
Beth Dooley & Sean Sherman: The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen – so happy about all his successes since that was published
Chef Freddie Bitsoie & James O. Fraioli: New Native Kitchen (found at the Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Food Lab in Midtown Global Market, located in what used to be the huge Sears store I’d frequent as a kid)
Robin Wall Kimmerer: Braiding Sweetgrass – of course
Added all together (and others), they make it tolerable.
Clarity Solutions 