The Home Place

Memoirs of a Colored Man's Love Affair with Nature

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.