The Home Place

The best starting point for J. Drew Lanham. This memoir, subtitled “Memoirs of a Colored Man’s Love Affair with Nature,” is a book about birds and belonging, about family and landscape, about what it means to love the land your ancestors were forced to work. It won the Reed Award from the Southern Environmental Law Center and the Southern Book Prize, and was a finalist for the John Burroughs Medal.

Why Start Here

Lanham’s academic writing and poetry are both excellent, but “The Home Place” is the book that brings everything together. It tells the story of his childhood in rural South Carolina during the 1970s, when he fell in love with the birds and woods around his family’s land. But it also tells the story of that land: who worked it, who owned it, who was buried in it.

The writing moves between tenderness and anger with an ease that never feels forced. Lanham describes the thrill of spotting a Swainson’s warbler with the same precision he uses to describe the weight of being one of the only Black faces at birding conferences. He is funny, self-aware, and generous with his readers, never simplifying the contradictions of loving a tradition that has not always loved him back.

For anyone who knows Sibley’s field guides or other birding literature, this book opens an entirely different door into the same world. It makes you see birds differently because it makes you see the people watching them differently.

What to Expect

A personal, accessible memoir at 240 pages. Lanham writes in short, vivid chapters that move between childhood memories, family history, bird observations, and reflections on race and conservation. The tone is warm but honest. No technical knowledge is required. You will come away with a deeper understanding of both American nature writing and the complicated relationship between Black Americans and the natural world.