“The humility that lies in the title of Charlotte Gill’s extraordinary Eating Dirt is more than borne out in this astonishing chronicle of work, the elements, and place. Years of the seasonal labor of planting trees in logged-off terrain are written about with verve, wonder and a ravenous ferocity about life, its cycles and rhythms . . . A sharp humor is part of the perspective—hand-in-hand with the humility. This book is often laugh-out-loud funny, though it can be tempered with what comes next. About seedlings, digging, what a tree is, and then many trees—whatever you call these planted landscapes, the forests they resemble, their part in the scheme of things, and about this often wet, moist, murky corner of North America—Charlotte Gill writes with a dexterity and nobility that soars. This is the best book, on several fronts, that I’ve read in a long time.”—Rick Simonson, Elliott Bay Book Company, Seattle. Buy Eating Dirt from Elliott Bay Book Company.
Face Out
Eating Dirt: Deep Forests, Big Timber, and Life with the Tree-Planting Tribe by Charlotte Gill
August 15, 2012
Lovely book. Is the author coming to the Seattle or Portland?
I don’t see any upcoming public events on her website, but she’ll be at PNBA’s Feast of Authors Sunday, Oct. 14.