America’s Wild Read Is Back

Do you enjoy reading books that will change your life, if you let them? Do you like the idea of being a part of a community of like-minded, open-hearted people? Will you take this journey seriously, and have some fun too? Then you need to learn about the Wild Read.

This January 2021, the USFWS Conservation Library is relaunching America’s Wild Read, a virtual, quarterly book club centered on inspiring readers to engage with conservation literature and nature writing, both classic and contemporary. Read along with us, and look out for posts here on the USFWS Conservation Library blog where we’ll weave together the perspectives of Fish and Wildlife Service thought leaders through their commentary and conversation. Join in on the discussion by posting your thoughts and responses.

The first selection for January 2021 is J. Drew Lanham’s The Home Place: Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature. Lanham is an Alumni Distinguished Professor of Wildlife Ecology and Master Teacher and Certified Wildlife Biologist at Clemson University. He is also a hunter, a birder, and a lyrical writer.

The Home Place pieces together the memories of the people and places that shaped Lanham’s identity as a man of color, a scientist, a lover of nature, and as “the rare bird, the oddity: appreciated by some for his different perspective and discounted by others as an unnecessary nuisance, an unusually colored fish out of water.” His memories of his family and nature in Edgefield, South Carolina shape the award-winning book.

If you are a Service employee and would like to read with us, here is the eBook for The Home Place.

Look out for more information on other Wild Read selections for 2021.