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Poppy State: A Labyrinth of Plants and a Story of Beginnings

Myriam Gurba

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From the award-winning author of Creep comes a powerful book by a writer at the peak of her powers—at once a love letter to California and a literary tour de force that tells the story of resilience and reclamation through a relationship with plants, memory, myth, and indigenous knowledge.

Myriam Gurba has lived in California her entire life, with its plants and soils, forests and ecology, immersing herself in the language of the landscape as refracted through the languages and memories of her ancestors. In Poppy State, California plants serve as structural anchors in a wildly inventive work of narrative nonfiction that is part botanical criticism, part personal storytelling, and part study of place.

The reader is invited to commune with California with Gurba as their guide, ushered through a compendium of anecdotes, reminiscences, utterances, lists, incantations, newspaper articles, and other ephemera. Through the stories of these plants she comes to a new understanding of what occurs in the cultivation of a soul. Gurba learns if she can care for her body as she does her plants, her soul can thrive—like the California poppy on her kitchen windowsill.

And through walks in the Angeles National Forest, she visits oaks, crows, elderberries, and sycamores, while foraging for acorns, flowers, and berries to adorn her altar at home. Poppy State is a riveting tour de force.

“The mother of intersectional Latinx identity.” —Cosmopolitan

"Scorchingly good."—Cheryl Strayed

“The most fearless writer in America.” —Luis Alberto Urrea, Pulitzer Prize finalist

"A truly distinctive, authentic, and dynamic literary voice. . . Myriam Gurba is one of our great American intellectuals." —Los Angeles Times

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Posts about this title from Bien Leidos

Bien Leidos\ \ tomesandtextiles\ \ • Jan 4

DAY 3 POSTING CHALLENGE: 2026 Latine Book Bingo Book Recommendations Part 1

25 Latine book recommendations to help you fill Bien Leidos Book Club bingo card! I take you through the first half of the bingo card with my recs for each.

WHERE ELSE TO FIND ME Join Bien Leidos Book Club by joining my Bindery: https://bien-leidos.binderybooks.com/ Find me everywhere else: https://linktr.ee/tomesandtextiles

22 books

Bien Leidos\ \ tomesandtextiles\ \ • Dec 8 2025

Review of Poppy State by Myriam Gurba

Replying to @theresacross71 here’s a little more about it and a short review #poppystate #myriamgurba #nonfictionbooks #readlatinxbooks #tomesandtextiles

1 book

Bien Leidos\ \ tomesandtextiles\ \ • Oct 21 2025

Happy Tuesday,\ \ Today’s post will be brief because I’m currently back home and recovering from my trip to Dallas for the Hay Festival Forum this past weekend. I feel like my brain chemistry was altered this weekend in a way that will shift all my work moving forward. I haven't gathered all my thoughts and I'm so exhausted right now, but you'll be getting a full wrap-up soon!\ \ As a reminder, giveaways for November’s book club selection, Salt Bones by Jennifer Givhan, are up exclusively for Libritos and Lectores members here, but you can also enter here (this giveaway is for ALL subscribers), as well on Tik Tok and Instagram for a total of 12 books I am giving away. All winners will be announced later today, so make sure to get your entries in soon!\ \ And I must apologize that time constraints kept me from creating this post before I left last week for Libritos and Lectores members. In addition, due to my tardiness and lack of time, not all books will have descriptions this week. We'll be back to normal programming later this week.\ \ So without further ado, let’s start off with the book of the week!\ \ \ \ Poppy State: A Labyrinth of Plants and a Story of Beginnings by Miriam Gurba (Audiobook) I can not tell you how excited I am for a book about California nature and flora written by one of my favorite and most searing voices of US Latine literature. This is possibly one of my most anticipated books of fall and possibly all of 2025 for me!\ \ PICTURE BOOK \ \ Frida Kahlo y Su Corona de Flores by Nydia Armedia-Sanchez and illustrated by Loris Lora\ \ LITERARY FICTION \ \ \ \ This Is The Only Kingdom by Jaquira Diaz (Audiobook) Mother and daughter wrestling with a murder set against the backdrop of a barrio in Puerto Rico\ \ \ \ Where the North Ends by Hugo Moreno\ \ IN TRANSLATION \ \ An Infinite Sadness by Antonio Xerxenesky and translated by Daniel Hahn\ \ \ \ Carne De Dios by Homero Aridjis and translated by Chloe Garcia Roberts\ \ YOUNG ADULT FANTASY \ \ \ \ Fall of the Fireflies by Guadalupe Garcia McCall (Audiobooks) First in the Seasons of Sisterhood trilogy a Mythology reimagining of Sophocles Antigone--available in both English and Spanish\ \ HORROR REISSUES \ \ \ \ The Shoemaker's Magician by Cynthia Pelayo (Audiobook)\ \ \ \ Children of Chicago by Cynthia Pelayo Adult Horror (Audiobook)\ \ ROMANCE \ \ Play You For It by Samantha Saldivar (Audiobook) In this sapphic romance, Journalist Caroline Beck believes that snagging an interview with Jordan D’Amato, the first female head coach of a Division 1 men’s basketball team, is the key to her big break. But what begins as a professional relationship soon transforms into chemistry that neither can resist, even as it puts their jobs at risk.\ \ NONFICTION \ \ \ \ Taco by Ignacio M. Sanchez Prado (Audiobook) You will never eat a taco the same way again--a deep dive into this food staple and its origins.\ \ xoxo,\ \ Carmen

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