Book #19: Ducks

Our first graphic novel.

Hi friends! This is Book Club for the Planet, a book club dedicated to reading about the climate crisis in community. Join us Sunday, October 29 (virtual) or Monday, October 30 (in-person) for our book club discussion of Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton.

Hi friends! It’s been a busy couple of months since our last book club—work travel, illness, and a canceled surgery (!)—and it’s totally slipped my mind to write up our post for our next read. Good thing that it’s a graphic novel you can easily devour in a weekend.

Our next book is Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton. It’s our first graphic novel and I hope it allows those new to graphic novels to experience them, as well as folks who are overwhelmed by meatier non-fiction tomes to join book club. The book is a memoir of the Beaton’s experience working the oil sands in Alberta, Canada as she tried to pay off her student loans. It’s easy to demonize the faceless oil industry (and we have, often), but it’s equally important to understand the lives and experiences of the workers on the ground working the oil sands. I’m about halfway through and it’s equal parts funny and chilling.

Book club dates: 10/29 (virtual) and 10/30 (in-person)

You have two opportunities for meeting up. First, we’ll meet on Sunday, October 29 at 1 PM on Google Meets:

Second, if you live in or near Baltimore, join us at Greedy Reads' Remington location on Monday, October 30 at 7pm EST. If you plan to join us in-person, please register in advance. 

For continued reading, please check out Yellow Bird: Oil, Murder, and a Woman's Search for Justice in Indian Country by Sierra Crane Murdoch and The Patch: The People, Pipelines and Politics of the Oil Sands by Chris Turner. I’ll also definitely be checking out Killers of the Flower Moon in theaters (and have the book on my to-read stack).