The Home Place

Memoirs of a Colored Man's Love Affair with Nature

By: J. Drew Lanham

Narrated by: J. Drew Lanham

From the fertile soils of love, land, identity, family, and race emerges The Home Place, a big-hearted, unforgettable memoir by ornithologist J. Drew Lanham.

Dating back to slavery, Edgefield County, South Carolina - a place "easy to pass by on the way somewhere else" - has been home to generations of Lanhams. In The Home Place, listeners meet these extraordinary people, including Drew himself, who over the course of the 1970s falls in love with the natural world around him. As his passion takes flight, however, he begins to ask what it means to be "the rare bird, the oddity".

By turns angry, funny, elegiac, and heartbreaking, The Home Place is a remarkable meditation on nature and belonging, at once a deeply moving memoir and riveting exploration of the contradictions of Black identity in the rural South - and in America today.

©2016 J. Drew Lanham (P)2019 Tantor

Beautiful Description and Storytelling

J Drew Lanham is a beautiful storyteller. The words are rich, intimate and bring the reader (listener) fully into his experience and world. I really loved his book and his narration.

Wonderful book!

I was already familiar with Dr. Lanham as a birder and scientist, and was delighted to discover his talents as a writer. This is a beautifully written book with the added benefit of narration by the author.

Wonderful story, Told beautifully

I really enjoyed this book. J. Lanham has a wonderful way with words and descriptions with science and poetry all mixed into one great book. I highly recommend!

Work worth reading

Should be required reading for high school students and teachers. Also book clubs. Thought provocin

Beautifully Done

I have so enjoyed listening to this book. You can feel the author’s love for his home place, his family and the land.

Loved it

Thank you for sharing your story, and including all the ancestors (human and otherwise) and history.
Beautiful.

Very Good

I got this title as part of the Plus program but it would've been well worth a credit. I thought it was a very thought-provoking listen.

Out of my normal realm

As a SC low country native, the authors love of nature & the home place resonated deeply with me. Sometimes I long to return to the home I once knew but know that home place no longer exists. The story felt familiar though it was not my own.

Beautiful in every way

What a wonderful book- I normally don't have the time nor have found a book that I wanted to write a review for, this is how much I enjoyed it-the story is a wonderful mix of history, love of the land and South Carolina, love of nature, love of family- just joyful. I'm a birder and the descriptions and observations of the birds was very accurate and painted a beautiful image in my mind as I listened. What he has shared will stay with me always. The narration by the author was the cherry on top. Thank you for sharing your life!!

My heart grew

My heart grew because of this book. Professor Lanham's writing is now beautifully etched in my heart and constant in my thoughts. This was one of those few in a lifetime books that I constantly seek, nurture and hold sacred. This book changed me and I promise that your reading will bestow unknown and unconditional gifts. We, the readers, are so grateful for the entire Lanham family and how what came before, what is and what will become is always found in the nature and land around us.