Commonplacing

Hello friends—sharing some reads I’ve enjoyed recently:

The complicated and unexpected history of dating.

An excerpt from

Chris La Tray

’s fantastic new book Becoming Little Shell.

A review of a new book on the many overlooked mathematicians, including women and men in China, India, the Arabian peninsula, and other parts of the world.

On the behavior of plants and the history plant philosophy—including the work of English botanist Agnes Arber (1879-1960), who argued for historical and philosophical studies to be part of modern scientific practice.

On researching the effects of salmon on a wider landscape: “We need the salmon, but we also need the bees, the birds, and the plants. It’s all tied together.”

And loved Lewis Hyde’s book A Primer for Forgetting: Getting Past the Past—a collage-like assemblage of research and memoir on memory and forgetting, how we need elements of both in order to imagine.

And recently learned of the film Hundreds of Beavers and of course it’s the zany silent film this modern era didn’t know it needed.

And a poem by Vievee Francis:

I am often in awe of the companions who accompany a summer walk….