The Serviceberry

 The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World by Robin Wall Kimmerer, 128 pages

In this short book Robin Wall Kimmerer, best known for the fabulous Braiding Sweetgrass, examines the potential for a more gift-based economy in place of the current scarcity-based economy. While Kimmerer is the first to admit that she is not an economist, she does do an admirable job bringing together sources who are experts in the kinds of things she is writing about, with a special emphasis on the developing field of ecological economics. She also relates many economic issues back to principles of resource distribution observed in nature. 

I got the feeling about halfway through this short book that it was an expanded version of an essay or article, which turns out to be exactly the case. This book is short and digestible, and provides a lot of food for thought. That being said, I do think it suffers a little for being so far outside of Kimmerer's area of expertise. This book feels like a good jumping off point for thinking about different possible economic models.