Book #13: Breathing Fire
Who keeps us safe, and at what cost?
Hi friends! This is Book Club for the Planet, an online community for us to read about the climate crisis in community.
Meeting for this book is Sunday, June 26 at 1 pm EST.
In line with your eagerness to read more on-the-ground climate stories, we’re turning to wildfires—the form of climate-induced natural disaster that affected the largest number of book club members last year (many of you are in California and Oregon). I was hoping to squeeze this book in before fire season really started… but, welp.
Journalist Jaime Lowe first wrote about the incarcerated women fighting California’s fires (most for less than $2 an hour) for her story in The New York Times Magazine, and expanded on that work for her book, Breathing Fire. In California, 30% of the state’s on-the-ground wildland crews are inmates, and about 200 of those firefighters are women working in all-female crews. This book shares those women’s stories, as well as the prison-industrial complex, economic disparity, and of course, climate change. I’m almost halfway in, and Lowe is a clear-eyed and wonderful storyteller. Her book feels like a cross between “Orange Is the New Black” and “Parable of the Sower”… except this is non-fiction.
For continued reading, please check out the incredible Fires Substack by Stacy Selby, a former female wildland firefighter, about wildfire management within the context of colonial history, ecology, and culture. Make sure to read her 10-part series, What was California like Before Fire Suppression?
If you’ve been joining book club for awhile and you’re feeling ready to take the next step towards action, you’re not alone. My friends at Rising Organizers will join us for the first 15 minutes of our June book club to talk about their mission—training new and emerging leaders in community organizing skills, for free! In the meantime, sign up for their email newsletter to stay updated on upcoming trainings.
Everyone is welcome to join our book club meet-ups, whether you’ve finished the book or not, and to engage in whatever way feels right to you. Maybe you’re coming to connect with others and work through these questions with a sympathetic sounding board, or maybe you’re coming to learn in a listen-only mode. You are welcome here! Our meetings last for 1 hour, but it’s totally ok to come for the first 30-45 minutes if that works for you.
For those who are new to our meetings, here’s how it works:
A few days before our meeting, I send out a separate Mailchimp newsletter with a Zoom registration link. Please register so I can plan appropriately for the size of our expected group. If you have unsubscribed to that newsletter (life happens and my email inbox perpetually has over 5,000 unread emails in it, so I get it!), please also make sure to unsubscribe to this Substack as well so I don’t accidentally re-subscribe you to the Mailchimp newsletter when I’m updating the lists every other month.
That’s it, for now! Happy reading!