Book Picks from CLP – Knoxville Artist in Residence – Vic Spindler Fox

The Dispossessed is the spellbinding story of anarchist Shevek, the “galactically famous scientist,” who single-handedly attempts to reunite two planets cut off from each other by centuries of distrust.

When we think of fungi, we likely think of mushrooms. But mushrooms are only fruiting bodies, analogous to apples on a tree. Most fungi live out of sight, yet make up a massively diverse kingdom of organisms that supports and sustains nearly all living systems. Fungi provide a key to understanding the planet on which we live, and the ways we think, feel, and behave.

Growing up, Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian felt most at home in the swamps and culverts near her house in Hudson Valley. A child who frequently felt out of place, too much of one thing or not enough of another, she found acceptance in these settings, among other amphibious beings.

An exploration of American ideas of utopia through the lens of one millennial’s quest to live a more communal life under late-stage capitalism

A revolutionary memoir about domestic abuse by the award-winning author of Her Body and Other Parties, In the Dream House is Carmen Maria Machado’s engrossing and wildly innovative account of a relationship gone bad, and a bold dissection of the mechanisms and cultural representations of psychological abuse.

In this collection of one novel and three stories, Torrey Peters’s keen eye for the rough edges of community and desire push the limits of trans writing.

Helen arrives in Appalachian Ohio eager to carry out her boyfriend’s ideas for living off the land, but when winter comes he calls it quits.

Theory of Water is a resonant exploration of an intricate, multi-layered relationship with the most abundant element on our planet–one that, as Simpson eloquently shows, is shaping our present even as it demands a radical rethinking of how we might achieve a just future.

Through the Woods tells the story of parallel journeys: an inner one, through the landscape of mourning, and an outer one, into the fascinating realm of mushrooms–resilient, adaptable, and essential to nature’s cycle of death and rebirth.

In We Grow the World Together, abolitionists and organizers Maya Schenwar and Kim Wilson bring together a remarkable collection of voices revealing the complex tapestry of ways people are living abolition in their daily lives through parenting and caregiving.