Circle M Farm

Perhaps the best thing about the web, and the blogosphere in particular, is that it enables you to connect with like-minded people you might never meet otherwise.

One of the many terrific people I “met” this year through the blog was Sandra Steingraber, an ecologist and author who’s life-changing book, Living Downstream: An Ecologist Looks at Cancer and the Environment, I reviewed back in August.

I knew about Steingraber because I saw her speak in La Crosse last February at the Upper Midwest Organic Farming Conference. (I highly recommend attending the conference, sponsored by MOSES, the Midwest Organic & Sustainable Education Service, held this year from February 21-23.) Her talk was mind-blowing and the passages she read from her book were eloquent and inspiring, so I ordered it from the library the moment I got home.

When I posted the review, Steingraber found me. She left a generous message on the blog, and promised to send me her more recent book, Having Faith: An Ecologist’s Journey to Motherhood. At the same time, another blog-reader posted the suggestion that we read Having Faith together, with whomever else would care to jump on-line.

So, here we go. It’s that reading time of year and we’re going to launch the book group on January 27 at readingcirclebooks.com, a web meeting place hosted by old friend and avid bookworm, Andy Wetzel. You can pop in and out of the discussion whenever you like, but Nicole Wetzel, Andy’s wife and mother of their five children, will facilitate the group by posting on a new chapter each Sunday.

If you need convincing, here’s a review by The Toronto Star that echoes my feelings about Steingraber:

“Like a cross between Rachel Carson and Oliver Sacks, Steingraber writes science as though it is poetry and prose that combines storytelling and a call to action. This is the most extraordinary pregnancy and birthing book I’ve ever read, as powerfully relevant to men as to women, as accessible to science dolts like me as it is persuasive to the more informed.”

If you care about the food supply, our children, or the planet, you should read this book. Most local libraries will have a copy. “See” you at the book group.

For those of you who don’t have time or inclination to join the group, I’ll try to post highlights both from the book and the discussion here every so often.