#silent spring

In some ways, reading Silent Spring was a deep bummer. We as a society rose up against insecticides after reading Rachel Carson’s magnum opus, but we still have so much to learn in changing our outlook towards working with nature instead of against it, in refusing to allow corporations to run the world of scientific research where it can impact lives (and especially to allow them to run and influence the FDA and other consumer protection agencies), and in demanding more rigorous study of the chemicals unleashed into our environment and bodies.

But in other ways, that is precisely what makes it still so worth reading. Carson’s work is still intensely relevant. It also made me determined never to use another insecticide without full PPE on for the rest of my life, and to oppose their use all together unless there’s legitimately no other choice. She preempted the struggles we’re now having with forever chemicals and microplastics, writing poignantly about the permeability of the human body. (Warning that her section on cancer is a bit outdated with more modern research.) She also makes a fierce argument for respecting the natural intervention of nature and the ways that so many of our troubles are caused by our own disruption of natural checks and balances to the system. Like many climate activists today, she stressed that doom and gloom are not the answer, because humans have the ability to invent and innovate, if we just put money behind genuine science and don’t make drastic, unscientific decisions. It is still vividly relevant, beautiful, and worthwhile reading. I also got to read this in Silver Spring, Maryland, which is where Carson wrote it.

Thanks to the schedule I made last October for my PhD comprehensive exam reading list, I am, by utter coincidence, reading Silent Spring by Rachel Carson today. Many consider Silent Spring the foundational text of the environmental movement. I'm 85 pages in at the moment, and it's both a rhetorically impressive and incredibly upsetting read. I'm reading it because one of my highest priorities, in this degree and in my life, is continuing to further my knowledge about the climate crisis, globally and locally. By doing this, I believe I improve my ability to act, and act wisely.

After spending almost seven months reading intensely about the environment through the eyes of many different writers of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, the concept I've been turning over and over in my mind is belonging. Approaches that lean towards hope rather than despair are ones in which the author experiences, even if they don't put into words, a sense of belonging in the world.

Talking to the people in my life, including classmates at my university, I've commonly encountered a deep love of the natural world, yet an even more influential feeling of regret or helplessness rooted in the belief that humans are an inherently bad and out-of-place thing in the world, tragically capable of a destructive power so much larger than our will to care-take, nurture, and leave alone. We've forgotten our belonging, and that forgetting is to the detriment of ourselves and our planet.

Books of 2025: November Wrap-Up.

Hello, world!! I emerge from a fungal fugue state having SUCCESSFULLY WRITTEN ANOTHER BOOK (peep my little notebooks of proof!) and also apparently having read a not-insignificant number of others!! What a great time!! (NaNo!Antagonist DNI)(actually NaNo!Protag DNI either, sorry girl)

Review photos linked:

WHIRLWIND ROMANCE ★★★ Weird and fucked up little collection of domestic, intimate stories (which was. not what I was expecting. when I put it on my TBR this year. but that's on me lol). I liked his style enough that I'll probably check out his novel-length work, too!

YOU MADE A FOOL OF DEATH WITH YOUR BEAUTY ★★ I've loved Emezi's other work, so this one was a HUGE disappointment to me. Messy and fucked up in an infuriating way (not a fun way). If you're considering picking Emezi up, don't start here.

COMMON BONDS ★★* Ugh okay as a Fellow Aro™ and Aficionado of SFF, I desperately wanted to love this anthology, but: unfortunately as a collection it was. not great. There are a few knockout stories in there, but they're mostly buried in the second half. I'm glad we've got more aro anthologies coming, and I do list my favorite stories from this one in my review, but maybe don't read this volume in order. *I feel bad rating this low, because aro perspectives are important and I want more of those, but from a technical perspective...these could be better, I'm sorry, I can't just not have standards because I'm aro lol.

A TASTE FOR POISON ★★★ This was fine! I wanted more science than I got (it's heavy on the true crime: historical edition). Interesting starting point for All Things Poison, though.

SILENT SPRING ★★★★★ Finally got around to reading this, after [mumbles incoherently in Biologist Interested in Ecology and Conservation]! Very good, very approachable, very incisive and relentless. The number of times I hollered GET HIS ASS, RACHEL while reading is unreal.

Now, if y'all will excuse me: I have to go enter a second, smaller fungal fugue state, in which I type up this book that I scribbled by hand in 29 days and knit a bunch of Christmas gifts and then collapse until New Year.

Under the Cut: A Note About ~*★Stars★*~