Introducing: The Mandorla 200
Micro-distillations of 200 necessary books on ecology, justice, and place-belonging for our times. 200 words or less.
In February 2018, I started a reading and writing project on Instagram called The Mandorla 200. The mission was threefold:
Read 200 necessary books on ecology, justice, and place-belonging for our times.
Write a 200-word “micro-distillation” for each of them, a little seed pod prose poem zip file (“Mandorla” is Italian for almond) where I try to embrace the whole book in one luscious paragraph.
Offer thanks to the author, publisher, and those who tipped me to the book.
The aim was to read with more depth and intention, to fully integrate each title by spending deep time with their art and find a way in with my own words, all while opening up the otherwise solitary practice of reading to build community, share great literature that matters, and offer gratitude.
These tiny dispatches continue to be perhaps the most fun, most playful parts of my writing life.
The Mandorla 200 is a highly curated selection of books—it doesn’t include every book I read, only the best—which means that if they end up on the Mandorla 200, they’ve been courted for a long time and are a top choice.
Starting in 2025, I’ll be cross-posting them here on The Jasmine Dialogues. I hope you enjoy.
In the spirit of literary community building, please add comments and share books and resources that you find inspiring.
OK. Here's book 112 of 200 (currently 56% complete with project!) You can find the other 111 entries here.
112: North Woods by Daniel Mason
There’s a ghost standing behind you. She’s twisting her torso as chimney smoke, shapes from the past that shape the present to remind us that this place is one bloated compost heap of death and rebirth—endless change. Think of all those born where you stand. All those dead. All attempts to flee, to belong, to kill, to love. Think of all the ceremony. This embeds into land and water as memory, metabolized through every fiber of time, electric saplings and blackened decay blubbering through veins and looking for a way through. To exist is to inherit this erotic churn—the romp and rot of it all. How might we live if we took this seriously, if death wasn’t singular loss but part of an ancient renaissance of enduring creativity, that every action, in fact, inoculates future worlds? The house is built with bones and filled with life, a fire that will eventually burn it all to bone again. To understand these ghosts as guides to the vast worlds beyond is, therefore, central to staying enchanted. You are as vital a nutrient as any to co-create the world you wish to see. So go on. Start preparing the ghost of you.
The Book: North Woods (2023)
The Author: Daniel Mason
The Publisher: Penguin Random House
The Tip: Trevien Stanger, Christopher Densmore