A review by eyeowna
Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses by Robin Wall Kimmerer

emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective relaxing medium-paced

4.0

This one is hard for me to rate! I loved learning about Kimmerer’s research experiences alongside her indigenous cultural history with nature. For my taste, I might have liked to have learned more deeply about mosses than spent time with Kimmerer’s personal narrative. Or, have more moss info added on to the narratives. That said, I could see that the way she combined science with narrative through metaphor/indigenous teaching was really nice even though I’m not a creative nonfiction-y person. There’s so much here to consider about naming things and/or turning things into an object. What do we remember and care about? What do we flatten or disrupt in nature with our personal desires? One story that will stick in my head was (and I’m summarizing this badly) a rich person who hired Kimmerer to give him advice on saving his moss garden. He had taken (exploded? Torn? Don’t remember) rocks off a cliff face where old mosses had grown very well, but the transplanted mosses started to die on his property. The desire to own and have the aesthetic of moss harmed the very thing the rich man wanted.

Also apparently some people harvest what are essentially old growth, slow-growing mosses for commercial use. Hate it!

There is way more to say and reflect on about this book, but I didn’t retain as much of it as I wanted.
I listened to the audiobook narrated by the author. Kimmerer is a soothing narrator—I’d listen to this to wind down at night while playing a puzzle game on my phone. But because of that, I feel like I missed out. User error on my part. Might reread and give this 5 stars (although my rating doesn’t really matter). Anyway: lovely, great time, we gotta protect mosses, mosses are the best.