Author's Bookshelf with Paul Feather & Terra Currie
In celebration of their new book, we invited authors, farmers, and longtime friends of Underground Books Paul Feather and Terra Currie to give us a peek at the bookshelf that went into Sacred Violence: A Family's Quest to Uproot Hitman Culture. Peruse the books that influenced their lives and their book here or at the bookshop, where you'll find Paul & Terra's recommendations in our homesteading section!
About Sacred Violence: A Family's Quest to Uproot Hitman Culture
Whether it's the meal on our dinner table, the clothes we wear, or the electricity powering our homes, so often our necessities arrive at our doorstep without us ever knowing what it took to get them there. In Sacred Violence, Paul Feather and Terra Currie identify our culture's lethal disconnect from our fundamental needs and its disastrous result: hitman culture--the widespread practice of paying others to enact the violence required in producing our basic needs. From spearing voles in their sweet potato patch to the community supported home birth of their daughter, Feather and Currie candidly share their quest to bring production of these basic needs back into their community and to find the sacred within the violence at the root of daily life.
Sacred Violence is an inspiring call to join a solution-oriented back-to-basics revolution that will reclaim our connection to the necessities of life and ensure a viable future for our children.
Worldchanging 101: Challenging the Myth of Powerlessness
by David LaMotte
This book provides powerful tools and approaches for breaking through the stagnation and inertia that paralyze so many of us. Mr. LaMotte’s insights will be very valuable for anyone looking to cultivate their power to change the world.
The Vagina Monologues
by Eve Ensler
Ms. Ensler’s 2017 monologue I Call You Body, which is the newest addition to this play, says everything that needs to be said right now. It draws together themes of empowerment and urgency in a poignant call to face the real challenges that have all of our lives on the line. The entire play intimately explores some of the most challenging issues that women face today.
A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
by Eckhart Tolle
This book is a necessity for your consciousness shifting toolbox. Read this book when you are ready to look for clarity beyond words.
Apple Farmer Annie
by Monica Wellington
Children’s books are somehow the simplest way to explore the most radical ideas. Painting a picture of a fulfilled, capable, independent, happy woman farmer, and placing that image in a young child’s head is powerful. If we want our children to grow up and be happy farmers, which I most certainly do, then this book is a great start. (Zinnia’s Flower Garden is also good!)
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants
by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Ms. Kimmerer has some really wonderful ideas about gratitude. We can’t thank her enough for sharing them J. This book is a brilliant weaving of personal stories, science, and traditional wisdom that produces a very perceptive cultural commentary.
The Hidden Half of Nature: The Microbial Roots of Life and Health
by David Montgomery and Anne Biklé
This book ties together the role of microorganisms in human and soil health in an intelligible and interesting way. Montgomery and Biklé do an excellent job of exploring extremely complicated systems with clarity and a keen insight into the potential and implications of a largely unexplored realm of science.
We Have the Right to Exist: A Translation of Aboriginal Indigenous Thought, the First Book Ever Published from an Ahnisinahbaeojibway Perspective
by Wub-e-ke-niew
This book has some of the most penetrating insights into the nature of human behavior that we have found. The chapter on identity, in particular, clearly outlines the role that our identities have in determining our behavior and how we may be manipulated through definition of who we are. It is also a valuable historical perspective for anyone looking for an accurate representation of the fall of indigenous culture in the United States (particularly the upper Midwest).
The full text of this book is available here.