The Serviceberry Audiobook By Robin Wall Kimmerer cover art

The Serviceberry

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The Serviceberry

By: Robin Wall Kimmerer
Narrated by: Robin Wall Kimmerer
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About this listen

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Braiding Sweetgrass, a bold and inspiring vision for how to orient our lives around gratitude, reciprocity, and community, based on the lessons of the natural world.

As Indigenous scientist and author of Braiding Sweetgrass Robin Wall Kimmerer harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy. How, she asks, can we learn from Indigenous wisdom and the plant world to reimagine what we value most? Our economy is rooted in scarcity, competition, and the hoarding of resources, and we have surrendered our values to a system that actively harms what we love. Meanwhile, the serviceberry’s relationship with the natural world is an embodiment of reciprocity, interconnectedness, and gratitude. The tree distributes its wealth—its abundance of sweet, juicy berries—to meet the needs of its natural community. And this distribution insures its own survival. As Kimmerer explains, “Serviceberries show us another model, one based upon reciprocity, where wealth comes from the quality of your relationships, not from the illusion of self-sufficiency.”

As Elizabeth Gilbert writes, Robin Wall Kimmerer is “a great teacher, and her words are a hymn of love to the world.” The Serviceberry is an antidote to the broken relationships and misguided goals of our times, and a reminder that “hoarding won’t save us, all flourishing is mutual.”

©2024 Robin Wall Kimmerer (P)2024 Simon & Schuster Audio
Botany & Plants Editors Select Indigenous Studies Inspiring
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What listeners say about The Serviceberry

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Engaging and optimistic

Engaging and optimistic, as the author's writing always is. I'm intrigued by the comparisons between the market economy and the gift economy and how those may even be able to coexist. Kimmerer also made one point that seems very obvious but was clarifying for me: an economic model founded on the assumption of scarcity (the market economy) is going to create scarcity artificially. It requires a mindset shift to recognize that we have enough and that excess can and should be shared.

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Inspiring!

Just wait until the end of the book! It gave me goosebumps in the best possible way!

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The Serviceberry

Beautiful thought experiments and examples of how we break our addiction to scarcity and vulture capitalism.

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a single berry

what I sense is that moment and place where you encounter and thereby experience the berry and the berry plant. you are feeling like being a part of nature.
it's important that the author frames this in our current time, when in 50 years, the earth will no longer be habitable for homo sapiens.

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Wonderful exploration of sustainable economics

Another wonderful story by Robin Wall Kimmerer exploring how we might structure sustainable economies and the parallels that exist in nature for modelling these kinds of systems.

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Great book!

This was my first book by this author and I picked it because I planted a serviceberry lol. To my surprise, I got an education in the gift economy which put words to my own values. Author also has a great voice and is easy to listen to, really glad she read her own work.

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This Matters

The precise exploration of the topic is just what I needed to move forward in this world. I look forward to bringing this message to others in my life. I am lost in mourning nature. I am not alone. Thank you!

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Gentle, gracious book

Every book by Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer is a gift of information and hope. Such a delight!

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Gift economy

I enjoyed the authors emotion and passion behind her work. I want to be apart of the gift economy

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Very good contrast between service economy and market economy

Absolutely essential is remembering gift economy works on a SMALL scale. But I like the ideals very much. I think some of the analogies to the natural world were a bit of a stretch, but I see the point. The only thing I disliked was the use of a given name as a put-down. I never liked calling people Brandon or Karen and find using Daryl just as childishly offensive. It also seems contrary to the generous spirit of gift economy. Like the author, I see all kinds of gift and exchange economies around these days, and they are genius ways of reusing things that would otherwise end up in landlords. It reminds me when I was a kid and neighbors would trade clothes and furniture when their own kids grew out of them. I also HATED getting hand-me-downs, but more I wear used clothing with pride.

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