BEST AUTHOR BEST : ROBIN WALL KIMMERER [2]

.-  What's the best book you've ever received as a gift?

Some years ago, I was given a copy of '' Freckles '' by Gene Stratton Porter, my most formative childhood book.

It's an old edition, smelling like old books do, and the cover is a bit soft. It features courageous women scientists trumping around in the woods, learning about birds and butterflies and swamps.

It was published in 1904 and has some problematic aspects, to be sure, but I was delighted to hold a copy in my hands.

.-  When did you know that success would change your life?

The work of '' Braiding Sweetgrass '' in the world has changed my life, but most importantly it has changed readers - and they are changing the world.

I think I felt the biggest awakening to its role when quotes were projected on buildings across the U.K. at COP 26, in Jenny Holzer's art installation '' Hurt Earth.''

.-  A version of '' The Strawberry '' was first published in a magazine. Why turn it into a book?

'' The Strawberry '' as a slim volume arose at the inspiration of Chris Richards, my editor at Scribner. He had read the essay in Emergence magazine and was convinced that these ideas need to be in public conversation.

He was quite persuasive that post-election, regardless of the outcome we would need a vision of a different way forward.

He invited me to add the existing essay, which I enthusiastically expanded, in a rather short time frame so it could appear right after the election. It's an invitation to question the values that underpin our current exploitative relation to the living world.

Why do we tolerate an economy that actively destroys what we love?

I am grieving the deeply painful divide in our country. When I look for any sign of common ground I hope we might find it in the ground itself, in the care of the land that sustains us all.

.-  Tell us about a nature writer who deserves to be better known.

The port ornithologist J Drew Lanham is a treasure. His books, '' The Home Place : Memoirs of a Colored Man's Love Affair With Nature '' and '' Sparrow Envy: Field Guide to Birds and Lesser Beasts,'' reflect a sensibility to the natural world that is simultaneously scientific and deeply emotional.

.-  What's the most interesting thing you learned from a book recently?

I was blown away by Zoe Schlanger's '' The Light Eaters '' about the intelligence of plants. I learned that there are tropical vines who change their shape, color and texture to match whatever plants they are growing with, undergoing a camouflage change in real time.

Scientists speculate that in some ways, the vine could '' see '' its neighbors. Or maybe the change is caused by the chemical signals of microbes? Wild Stuff.