The Earth Said Remember Me

This beau­ti­ful and urgent book will con­vince you that tend­ing to our mem­o­ries of the earth — done togeth­er, with our hands in the dirt and our eyes lift­ed — is not only resis­tance, but a kind of joy, a hope­ful and prac­ti­cal way of build­ing a more sus­tain­able tomor­row in the name of wonder. — Aimee Nezhuku­matathil, author of New York Times best­seller World of Won­ders and Night Owls

Full of hope and wis­dom, The Earth Said Remem­ber Me is a mov­ing guide to how record­ing nature’s won­der and loss can help us mend the future. Jason Dove Mark makes a pow­er­ful case for why we must chron­i­cle the fire­flies that lit the woods before the fires, the sea stars that lined the beach­es before the blight. Then he shows us how. Fam­i­lies, cit­i­zen groups, and class­es should read it togeth­er to record, to remem­ber — and to resist. — Cyn­thia Bar­nett, author of The Sound of the Sea and Rain: A Nat­ur­al and Cul­tur­al His­to­ry.

Jason Dove Mark’s new book names and explores some of the key prac­tices for shap­ing a good Anthro­pocene, and also for expe­ri­enc­ing a ful­filled human life with­in that shared project. Remem­ber­ing that we are social pri­mates, mam­mals, ani­mals liv­ing on the side of a plan­et; these are the cru­cial start­ing points for life to have mean­ing. And mean­ing is as cru­cial as food. This book helps to clar­i­fy these things; it is a kind of cog­ni­tive and emo­tion­al map. — Kim Stan­ley Robin­son, author of The Min­istry of the Future 

Jason Dove Mark reminds us that with­out mem­o­ry, we have no imag­i­na­tion. First step: go out­side. Then read this book and bear wit­ness, make a record, and pass it on. This is our path for­ward for hon­or­ing — and recov­er­ing — our beau­ti­ful, fast-dis­ap­pear­ing world. — Flo­rence Williams, author of The Nature Fix

An urgent man­i­festo about what it takes to hold onto mem­o­ries of a live­li­er world. His pre­scrip­tion, or anti­dote against such envi­ron­men­tal amne­sia, is sim­ple: Go out­side, bear wit­ness, make a record, pass it on. All you need is a pair of eyes, a cal­en­dar, and a pen. Read aloud, his instruc­tion sounds like an incan­ta­tion. … [Mark’s] great­est tool against for­get­ting is lan­guage … [his] devo­tion to get­ting it right is what con­vinces the read­er to turn our own quests into art.A pas­sion­ate cry of resis­tance to bear wit­ness to the nat­ur­al world and remem­ber its abundance. — Kirkus Reviews,  Starred Review

“A hope­ful man­u­al for stay­ing engaged in pro­tect­ing the plan­et … A wel­come anti­dote to dooms­day reports.” — Pub­lish­ers Weekly