Book Talk: A Natural History of the Spirits with Jori Lewis

Author Jori Lewis will be discussing her newest book about the intersections of ecology, culture, and how we formulate ideas of home. Join us as we welcome narrative nonfiction writer Jori Lewis for a discussion of A Natural History of the Spirits: On Ecology, Belonging, and the Sublime! Jori will be joined in conversation by Darcel Rockett, with Q&A and book signing to follow. --About the Book-- From the winner of James Beard, Harriet Tubman, and Whiting Awards, a shimmering and unexpected vision of the world we inhabit together From the celebrated journalist whose work has been hailed by Tiya Miles as "broad, complex, and unexpected," and by Publishers Weekly as "informative and compassionate," award-winning author Jori Lewis's stunning new book blends scientific research, myth, folklore, and cultural analysis in a lyrical literary work that observes the natural world as an entry point into understanding the traumas of our history and the unexplored dimensions of our spiritual lives. A Natural History of the Spirits offers profound meditations on the history of colonialism, racism, and social and ecological change, exploring such wide-ranging subjects as the reproduction crisis of the long-lived African baobab tree in the face of climate change; the evolutionary history of the watermelon and how racist stereotypes related to it developed and persist in the United States; the disquieted spirits of the Senegalese island Sangomar in the wake of new oil and gas exploration in the area; and how, by observing the habits of plants and animals, we may more deeply understand how we create home. For readers of Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass and Barry Lopez's Arctic Dreams, A Natural History of the Spirits grapples with how we have made, and continue to make, meaning of the world by reading the land, the animals, the water, and the skies. Jori Lewis writes narrative nonfiction that explores how people interact with their environments. Her reports and essays have been published in The Atlantic Magazine, Orion Magazine and The New York Review of Books, among others, and she is the editor in chief of Adi Magazine, a literary magazine of global politics. Her first book, Slaves for Peanuts: A Story of Conquest, Liberation, and a Crop That Changed History, won a Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant, a Silvers Grant, a James Beard media award, and the Harriet Tubman Prize. She was a 2019-2020 Scripps Fellow at the University of Colorado, Boulder and a 2024-2025 Knight Science Journalism Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A Natural History of the Spirits is her second book. Darcel Rockett is a Senior Journalist at the Chicago Tribune, where she has spent more than a decade covering Chicago’s most urgent stories, shaping coverage strategy, and driving digital audience engagement. A seasoned editor and storyteller, Darcel previously served as a Digital News Editor, helping lead breaking news and long-form feature coverage during major moments, including the 2013 NATO Summit. She brings deep experience across media and communications, with past roles at CBS 2 Chicago, the Associated Press, and in nonprofit and education communications, making her a powerful voice on storytelling, strategy, and impact. Darcel holds a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Chicago and a Master’s in Journalism from Columbia University, grounding her work in both civic understanding and rigorous reporting.