Join us virtually or in person the 4th Wednesday of each month for a nature-themed book club!

Ticket sales close 6 weeks before the meeting. You only need to purchase a ticket if you need a copy of the book supplied for you. The $15 ticket fee covers the cost of the book. If you want to obtain the book on your own, please choose the free RSVP instead of purchasing a ticket.

Zoom links will be sent directly to your email when you RSVP/purchase a ticket. A link to the book club meeting will also be available on this page when the book club meeting begins.

Want to join us at book club every month? Sign up for the 2025 book club pass and save! Receive books for the whole year at a discounted price. Click here for more information.

About the book…

A provocative rethinking of how humans and fire have evolved together over time–and our responsibility to reorient this relationship before it’s too late.​

The Pyrocene tells the story of what happened when a fire-wielding species, humanity, met an especially fire-receptive time in Earth’s history. Since terrestrial life first appeared, flames have flourished. Over the past two million years, however, one genus gained the ability to manipulate fire, swiftly remaking both itself and eventually the world. We developed small guts and big heads by cooking food; we climbed the food chain by cooking landscapes; and now we have become a geologic force by cooking the planet.

Some fire uses have been direct: fire applied to convert living landscapes into hunting grounds, forage fields, farms, and pastures. Others have been indirect, through pyrotechnologies that expanded humanity’s reach beyond flame’s grasp. Still, preindustrial and Indigenous societies largely operated within broad ecological constraints that determined how, and when, living landscapes could be burned. These ancient relationships between humans and fire broke down when people began to burn fossil biomass–lithic landscapes–and humanity’s firepower became unbounded. Fire-catalyzed climate change globalized the impacts into a new geologic epoch. The Pleistocene yielded to the Pyrocene.

Around fires, across millennia, we have told stories that explained the world and negotiated our place within it. The Pyrocene continues that tradition, describing how we have remade the Earth and how we might recover our responsibilities as keepers of the planetary flame.

Questions? Call us at 715-463-2739 or email information@crexmeadows.org