Cozy Beginnings

The Nature of Reading Newsletter | Fall | Week 8

Dear readers,

Greetings from another sunny day as we finally begin to creep closer to the colder months.

A snapshot of the setup for last Tuesday’s cozy crafting event

This quiet week at the shop was filled with the overwhelming gratitude and love I feel for our community and all the support you’ve shown me. After the little note at the end of last week’s newsletter, I received over 35 new reviews with the kindest of words for the shop and what I’ve tried to build here. Thank you so much for sharing your kindheartedness and helping other nature lovers and readers find our shop.

Despite a quiet week in Madison’s downtown, I was as busy as ever (I can’t help myself!) starting to switch things over for the winter holidays. While climate change has rendered this year’s weather patterns most unusual, I’ve heard from many visitors that they need some holiday cheer early this year. And I’ll happily oblige! Especially since we’ll be starting our winter-themed crafting events this week, it seems the perfect time to switch things over to celebrate all things wintry and cozy. Stop by the shop today from 11am-4pm to see the beginnings: felt ornaments, beeswax candles, and knit stockings bring new warmth to the space.

I’d love to share the joys of all things hygge with you at one of our events this week—we have two spots left in each event! Perfect for you and a friend. See below for more details.

As waves of reflection and processing continue to wash over us, know that I am here at the shop for whenever you want to talk about what we can do to continue to care for our planet and each other even when times are dark.

One last thing—Robin Wall Kimmerer’s much anticipated new book The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World comes out this Tuesday, November 19th. If you’re as excited for this book as I am, you can order your copy online today for pickup in store (or delivery) starting Tuesday.

I need to head back to my usual running around frantically, but I wish you all the very best weekend and hope to see you at the shop soon.

All best wishes,

Hailey

If you need to add some more light to your month, we’d love to have you at our next crafting event. The next one is in just two days, and there are just two spots left!

This Tuesday we’ll be working on this beautiful little embroidery sampler. At this event, you’ll learn how to do all of the stitches along the outer edges of the project, and then at home you’ll finish up the little cardinal in the center. The kit additionally comes with a mini embroidery hoop so you can perfectly frame the final project! Embroidery is so relaxing and truly a great hobby to pick up before the long winter nights fully set in.

Lastly we have two spot left in this event, the second in the series of seasonal bird cross stitch kits! Last month we did the fall bird and this month is the winter one. I’ve loved getting more into the art of cross stitch—once you get reading the pattern down, it’s a relaxing, repetitive process that helps quiet the mind and pairs perfectly with your favorite audiobook or TV show. And as always, at all these events you get 10% off any purchases made that night! It’s a great way to get your holiday shopping started. I hope to see you there!

1. Notes from an Island by Tove Jansson

From a renowned artist and writer, a deeply personal nature journal about the island that informed her many works, with paintings from her longtime partner. For thirty summers Tove and her beloved partner, the visual artist, Tuulikki “Tooti” Pietilä, lived, painted, and wrote on the island Klovharun, energized by the solitude and shifting seascapes. The island's flora, fauna, and weather patterns provided deep inspiration which can be seen reflected in all of Jansson's work. Tove's signature spare, quirky prose, and Tooti's subtle ink washes and aquatints combine to form a work of meditative beauty, a chronicle of living peacefully in nature and observing the island’s ecology and character. 

2. The Science of Last Things by Ellen Wayland-Smith

In this luminous collection of essays, Ellen Wayland-Smith probes the raw edges of human existence, those periods of life in which our bodies remind us of our transience and the boundaries of the self dissolve. From the Old Testament to Maggie Nelson, these explorations are grounded in a rich network of associations. At once intimate and expansive, The Science of Last Things peels back layers of human thought and behavior, breaking down our modern conceptions of individuality and reframing us as participants in a world of astounding elegance and mystery.

3. Vanishing Treasures by Katherine Rundell

The world is more astonishing, more miraculous, and more wonderful than our wildest imaginings. In this brilliant and passionately persuasive book, Katherine Rundell takes us on a globe-spanning tour of the world's most awe-inspiring animals currently facing extinction. This urgent, inspiring book of essays dedicated to 23 unusual and underappreciated creatures is a clarion call insisting that we look at the world around us with new eyes—to see the magic of the animals we live among, their unknown histories and capabilities, and above all how lucky we are to tread the same ground as such vanishing treasures. Beautifully illustrated, and full of inimitable wit and intellect, Vanishing Treasures is a chance to be awestruck and lovestruck, to reckon with the beauty of the world, its fragility, and its strangeness.

This month in The Nature of Reading Book Club we’ll be reading Turning to Stone: Discovering the Subtle Wisdom of Rocks by Marcia Bjornerud.

I wanted to choose a book that was particularly grounding given all that we to be happening politically this month, and now more than ever in the aftermath of the election results, I think we could all use some grounding an the calming perspective of looking at geological history and deep time.

Weaving stories of her life as a geologist with extraordinary geological histories and unexpected facts about the ground beneath our feet, Marcia Bjornerud brings us on a journey of deep time and newfound understanding.

We’d love for you to join us to read this stunning book—you can sign up here.

For our November episode of Attending Together, we’ll be reading The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan. In case you missed our first episode discussing Mary Oliver’s Upstream, here’s the link to listen whenever you’d like.

We hope you’ll read the beautiful Backyard Bird Chronicles along with us. Thanks to the wonderful generosity of one of our readers, all copies ordered through the shop will come with a special Backyard Bird Chronicles bookplate signed by Amy Tan! You can get your copy here if you’d like to pick it up at the shop, or you can order a copy for delivery through Bookshop.org.

Last week’s book recommendations were all about building community, and this week’s recommendations are another way to care for yourself and others in this stormy season. One of the best ways to stay grounded in this age of news and information overload is to spend time in nature. Most of my readers are local, so here are some recommendations for NJ nature guides, but you can find the equivalent for your state on Bookshop.org.

NJ Nature Guide Recommendations

1. 50 Hikes in New Jersey

A treasury of trails that takes you to the best wild places in the Garden State. With excursions from 1.5 to 28 miles in length, accompanied by driving directions, trailhead information, difficulty ratings, and detailed maps, this roster of hikes will suit everyone from families out for a nature walk to adventurous backpackers up for challenge.

2. Foraging Pennsylvania and New Jersey: Finding, Identifying, and Preparing Edible Wild Foods

From cattails to wild garlic, this guide uncovers the edible wild foods and healthful herbs of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Written for people who want to know more about foraging, including those who are absolute beginners and perhaps don’t even know where to start, this book provides clear photos and easy to follow instructions for plant identification. Readers will learn all about safely recognizing, respecting, and utilizing wild plants.

3. New Jersey Wildlife Viewing Guide: Where to Watch Wildlife

New Jersey’s diverse habitats mean much unique wildlife viewing. Use the New Jersey Wildlife Viewing Guide on your next nature outing. The book offers detailed descriptions of 104 unique locations and the wildlife you may find at each, as well as a three-tiered rating system, letting you know which locations are not to be missed.

This week’s moment in nature features a creature most of us see in our backyards each day. Besides being a quite dashing picture of this squirrel, this image represents the little opportunities we have every day to connect with the more-than-human world.

I was rushing into my car, running late for who knows what, when I look through the window and see a mere few feet away this perfectly framed and snacking squirrel. Our apartment building is surrounded by sidewalks, roads, and parking lots, but behind the building next door there is a small patch of grass and a wooden fence that often serves as the sitting place for this hungry squirrel (previously we’ve seen him there eating a slice of Dominos pizza).

So close to him, I stopped for a few moments in my busy day and watched this nearby squirrel whose features I could see so clearly. This moment of urban nature watching helped widen my perspective on my worries and urgent busyness, slowed my heart rate, and allowed me to continue my day with a clearer head less susceptible to being bogged down with too much self-focused anxiety. I hope you have many such moments this week.