One book that has definitely been influencing my thoughts and views, is Braiding Sweetgrass. The book combines ancestral Indigenous knowledge with scientific findings to educate us about the natural world, specifically plants. The authors proposes we think of trees as non-human people, and reminds us that nature anything but compartmentalized. I have been thinking a lot more about plants in this connected way, and have begun thinking about ways to use these ideas in my life. When I look at the sprawing fields around my town, I no longer see cash crops, instead I see unhealthy monocultures and dead soil that could have been fixed with the three sisters.

A lot of the books I have read have queer characters in some capacity, and most of the time it's not a big deal. They often take the stance of "Yeah, Achilles and Patroclus are clearly gay, but who isn't", and it has started to seep into my everyday life. When I was younger, hearing someone was queer was really important and interesting, but now it's just a run of the mill thing, which I think is exactly how it should be.