Queer Ecologies Book Club Reads -- Salt Lakes: An Unnatural History
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THIS BOOK CLUB HAS BEEN EXTENDED AND WILL GO THROUGH OCTOBER 2026. Check back in the fall to see if it will continue in 2027!
This group will meet regularly in-person at Charis on the first Thursday of each month at 7pm.
About the book club:
Queer Ecologies is an emerging field that illuminates queerness in the natural world. Through a mix of non-fiction, speculative fiction, and poetry, the Queer Ecologies Book Club introduces readers to the queer, non-binary, and downright bizarre beings found all over planet Earth. Simultaneously, we consider what it means to live queerly on and practice care for this rapidly transforming planet we call home. The Queer Ecologies Book Club centers queer, trans, and gender expansive people, ideas, experiences, and ways of being, but is open to all community members. Participants are encouraged to read the month’s book before our gatherings. However, doing so is not required - come as you are, regardless of how much you’ve read! Participants are expected to treat each other with respect in all group conversations and interactions. This book club is facilitated by Charis bookseller & queer ecologist, Yarrow Koning.
About our August book:
Salt Lakes: An Unnatural History by Caroline Tracey
An acclaimed nature writer’s dazzling love letter to a strange ecosystem and a moving odyssey into her own identity.
More than a hundred salt lakes dot Earth’s surface, most of them hidden away in remote desert valleys. But today nearly all of them are at risk of drying up. Their death is a harbinger of rising sea levels, life-threatening dust storms, and environmental collapse.
Writer and geographer Caroline Tracey didn’t know this when she began crossing paths with salt lakes during her early twenties. From the Great Salt Lake to the Aral Sea, across the American West and around the world, the unusual beauty of these shimmering, uncanny bodies of water captured her imagination. In Salt Lakes, Tracey travels across four continents to seek out and describe these extraordinary vanishing lakes and the people dedicated to saving them. She takes readers along on her adventures by train in Kazakhstan and on an inflatable raft in California, on her encounter with Mormon environmentalists in Utah and an Australian Aboriginal painter seeking to capture her country for her children. In evocative prose, she traces shorebirds’ seasonal migration and the history of water law.
As Tracey chronicles the decline of the lakes, she also experiences dramatic changes in her own life and conception of self. Running parallel to Tracey’s environmental journey is an intimate, human one: her story of finding queer love and building a home in a world fast being remade by ecological crises. By the end of Salt Lakes, she shows us how seeing the environment through a queer lens could help save our water system.
An exquisite blend of travel writing, memoir, and reportage, Salt Lakes is an inspiring call to fight for all that is fragile in our lives.
2026 Books:
January: Queer Ducks (and Other Animals): The Natural World of Animal Sexuality by Eliot Schrefer
February: Fearless, Sleepless, Deathless: What Fungi Taught Me about Nourishment, Poison, Ecology, Hidden Histories, Zombies, and Black Survival by Maria Pinto
March: Forest Euphoria: The Abounding Queerness of Nature by Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian
April: Unfurl: Survivals, Sorrows, and Dreaming by Eli Clare
May: What A Fish Looks Like by Syr Hayati Beker
June: Love After the End: An Anthology of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction edited by Joshua Whitehead
July: Rachel Carson and the Power of Queer Love by Lida Maxwell
August: Salt Lakes: An Unnatural History by Caroline Tracey
September: Scapegoat: What the Invasive Species Story Gets Wrong by Clare Follmann
October: The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
In-person event guidelines:
- All attendees must wear a face mask.
- We will begin seating people at 6:45 PM ET.
- As a reminder: If you are not feeling well, please do not come to the event.
If you have any questions regarding these guidelines or to request specific accessibility accommodations, please contact [email protected] or call the store at 404-524-0304
The event is free and open to all people, but we encourage and appreciate a donation of $5-20 in support of the work of Charis Circle, our programming non-profit. Donate online at www.chariscircle.org/donate or in person at the event.
By attending our event you agree to our Code of Conduct: Our event seeks to provide a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, religion (or lack thereof), class, or technology choices. We do not tolerate harassment in any form. Unsolicited sexual language and imagery are not appropriate. Anyone violating these rules will be expelled from this event and all future events at the discretion of the organizers.
By attending our event you agree to our Code of Conduct: Our event seeks to provide a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, religion (or lack thereof), class, or technology choices. We do not tolerate harassment in any form. Unsolicited sexual language and imagery are not appropriate. Anyone violating these rules will be expelled from this event and all future events at the discretion of the organizers. Please report all harassment to [email protected] immediately.
This group will meet regularly in-person at Charis on the first Thursday of each month at 7pm.
About the book club:
Queer Ecologies is an emerging field that illuminates queerness in the natural world. Through a mix of non-fiction, speculative fiction, and poetry, the Queer Ecologies Book Club introduces readers to the queer, non-binary, and downright bizarre beings found all over planet Earth. Simultaneously, we consider what it means to live queerly on and practice care for this rapidly transforming planet we call home. The Queer Ecologies Book Club centers queer, trans, and gender expansive people, ideas, experiences, and ways of being, but is open to all community members. Participants are encouraged to read the month’s book before our gatherings. However, doing so is not required - come as you are, regardless of how much you’ve read! Participants are expected to treat each other with respect in all group conversations and interactions. This book club is facilitated by Charis bookseller & queer ecologist, Yarrow Koning.
About our August book:
Salt Lakes: An Unnatural History by Caroline Tracey
An acclaimed nature writer’s dazzling love letter to a strange ecosystem and a moving odyssey into her own identity.
More than a hundred salt lakes dot Earth’s surface, most of them hidden away in remote desert valleys. But today nearly all of them are at risk of drying up. Their death is a harbinger of rising sea levels, life-threatening dust storms, and environmental collapse.
Writer and geographer Caroline Tracey didn’t know this when she began crossing paths with salt lakes during her early twenties. From the Great Salt Lake to the Aral Sea, across the American West and around the world, the unusual beauty of these shimmering, uncanny bodies of water captured her imagination. In Salt Lakes, Tracey travels across four continents to seek out and describe these extraordinary vanishing lakes and the people dedicated to saving them. She takes readers along on her adventures by train in Kazakhstan and on an inflatable raft in California, on her encounter with Mormon environmentalists in Utah and an Australian Aboriginal painter seeking to capture her country for her children. In evocative prose, she traces shorebirds’ seasonal migration and the history of water law.
As Tracey chronicles the decline of the lakes, she also experiences dramatic changes in her own life and conception of self. Running parallel to Tracey’s environmental journey is an intimate, human one: her story of finding queer love and building a home in a world fast being remade by ecological crises. By the end of Salt Lakes, she shows us how seeing the environment through a queer lens could help save our water system.
An exquisite blend of travel writing, memoir, and reportage, Salt Lakes is an inspiring call to fight for all that is fragile in our lives.
2026 Books:
January: Queer Ducks (and Other Animals): The Natural World of Animal Sexuality by Eliot Schrefer
February: Fearless, Sleepless, Deathless: What Fungi Taught Me about Nourishment, Poison, Ecology, Hidden Histories, Zombies, and Black Survival by Maria Pinto
March: Forest Euphoria: The Abounding Queerness of Nature by Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian
April: Unfurl: Survivals, Sorrows, and Dreaming by Eli Clare
May: What A Fish Looks Like by Syr Hayati Beker
June: Love After the End: An Anthology of Two-Spirit and Indigiqueer Speculative Fiction edited by Joshua Whitehead
July: Rachel Carson and the Power of Queer Love by Lida Maxwell
August: Salt Lakes: An Unnatural History by Caroline Tracey
September: Scapegoat: What the Invasive Species Story Gets Wrong by Clare Follmann
October: The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
In-person event guidelines:
- All attendees must wear a face mask.
- We will begin seating people at 6:45 PM ET.
- As a reminder: If you are not feeling well, please do not come to the event.
If you have any questions regarding these guidelines or to request specific accessibility accommodations, please contact [email protected] or call the store at 404-524-0304
The event is free and open to all people, but we encourage and appreciate a donation of $5-20 in support of the work of Charis Circle, our programming non-profit. Donate online at www.chariscircle.org/donate or in person at the event.
By attending our event you agree to our Code of Conduct: Our event seeks to provide a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, religion (or lack thereof), class, or technology choices. We do not tolerate harassment in any form. Unsolicited sexual language and imagery are not appropriate. Anyone violating these rules will be expelled from this event and all future events at the discretion of the organizers.
By attending our event you agree to our Code of Conduct: Our event seeks to provide a harassment-free experience for everyone, regardless of gender, gender identity and expression, age, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, ethnicity, religion (or lack thereof), class, or technology choices. We do not tolerate harassment in any form. Unsolicited sexual language and imagery are not appropriate. Anyone violating these rules will be expelled from this event and all future events at the discretion of the organizers. Please report all harassment to [email protected] immediately.
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Where is it happening?
184 S. Candler St. , Decatur, GA, United States, Georgia 30030
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.
Host or PublisherCharis Books and More/Charis Circle
