Valpo Reads A Book Announces 2018 Book Selection: The Nature FIx

Valpo Reads A Book Announces 2018 Book Selection: The Nature FIx

Valpo Reads A Book project is pleased to announce The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative by Florence Williams as their 2018 book selection. The author is planning to visit Valparaiso for a round of book discussions and a book signing in various locations in Valparaiso on Thursday March 1, 2018.

The Nature Fix is an intrepid investigation into nature’s restorative benefits by a prize-winning author.

For centuries, poets and philosophers extolled the benefits of a walk in the woods: Beethoven drew inspiration from rocks and trees; Wordsworth composed while tromping over the heath; and Nikola Tesla conceived the electric motor while visiting a park. Intrigued by our storied renewal in the natural world, Florence Williams set out to uncover the science behind nature’s positive effects on the brain.

In this informative and entertaining account, Williams investigates cutting-edge research as she travels to fragrant cypress forests in Korea to meet the rangers who administer “forest healing programs,” to the green hills of Scotland and its “ecotherapeutic” approach to caring for the mentally ill, to a river trip in Idaho with Iraqi vets suffering from PTSD, to the West Virginia mountains where she discovers how being outside helps children with ADHD. The Nature Fix demonstrates that our connection to nature is much more important to our cognition than we think and that even small amounts of exposure to the living world can improve our creativity and enhance our mood. In prose that is incisive, witty, and urgent, Williams shows how time in nature is not a luxury but is in fact essential to our humanity. As our modern lives shift dramatically indoors, these ideas—and the answers they yield—are more urgent than ever.

The Valpo Reads a Book project is comprised of educators, parents, and community members that volunteer together to bring one mission to Valparaiso and Northwest Indiana: the community-wide reading of one dynamic and unforgettable book. Previous Valpo Reads A Book selections are: To Kill A Mockingbird, Frankenstein, Our Town, A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, Touching Spirit Bear, The Book of Unknown Americans, and more.

With each book selection, Valpo Reads A Book organizes several community and civic engagement experiences with community members and organizations like: author visits, book discussions, movies, shared storytelling, and other cultural outreach activities.

If your business or organization would like to sponsor the 2018 Valpo Reads A Book selection, or if your book group or organization would like to host a book reading, an author visit, or another related activity, please contact the Valpo Reads A Book committee by email at: valporeads@gmail.com or by calling the 2018 Valpo Reads A Book project Chair Candace Shaw at: 219-276-0928. You can also find Valpo Reads A Book on facebook.

The Nature Fix is available for purchase at most online and standing book stores including: Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Kindle, iBooks, and more.