Tree books

    As part of the Sylva exhibition currently on here at the Royal Botanic Garden, certain favourite tree books are on display, all chosen by garden staff, conservationists and others.

We were pleased to see among them Brendon Chase by 'BB', beloved by Mr. C., Jean Giono's The Man Who Planted Trees (post on it here),

and Wildwood: A Journey Through Trees by Roger Deakin,

and we loved the jacket design for The Native Pinewoods Of Scotland.

    Just for the fun of it, do you have a 'tree book'  - in the loosest sense, and fiction or non-fiction - which you'd like to mention? I'll start with Betsy Lerner's The Forest for the Trees: An Editor's Advice to Writers which Madeline Miller recommended and from which I've quoted here; and one to look out for in due course: Tracy Chevalier's next novel will feature fruit trees (find out more here).

Comments

[Lory @ Emerald City Book Review]

As a child I was captivated by the passage in C.S. Lewis's "Prince Caspian" where he describes what certain trees would be like if they were people. On rereading it I was surprised at how brief it is; it definitely awakened more complete imaginings in me. Following on this theme, much later I discovered "The Oak King and the Ash Queen" by Ann Phillips. Here two children become caught up in a struggle between two different tribes of tree-people.

[Cornflower]

Lory, you've just reminded me of something (for which many thanks): in his biography of Lewis, Alister McGrath refers to recent scholarship concerning the influence of the planets on the structure of the Narnian chronicles (this is following medieval tradition, I believe). Mars governs Prince Caspian, and that accounts for both the martial and sylvan elements of the book.
I don't know The Oak King and the Ash Queen, but it sounds intriguing.

[Mr Cornflower]

Ah, you got in ahead of me with Brendon Chase, so I'll fall back on Italo Calvino's "Il Barone Rampante" (The Baron in the Trees). I'd forgotten that the final straw which provokes the 12 year old baron to climb into the welcoming shelter of the Ligurian oak forests was being forced to eat a dish of snails by his mean big sister! On the non-fiction side there's a lot of choice, but I'll stick to Thomas Pakenham's "Meetings with Remarkable Trees", "Trees of Britain and Northern Europe" by the refreshingly opinionated Alan Mitchell, and I defy anyone not to be tempted by David and Jeanie Stiles' "Tree Houses you can actually build".

[Deborah]

Love your mention and link to Giono. I can never get out of my mind his line about lightning striking a man like a tree being plunged between his shoulders. (No quotation marks because I can't remember it exactly.)

Happy Easter, Karen!

[MzTallulah]

I see that Mr. Cornflower has already mentioned Il Barone Rampante, which was one of my very favourite books as a child in Italy. The big sister is a wonderful - and very sad - character.

[Lory @ Emerald City Book Review]

I think you're talking about the book Planet Narnia by Michael Ward. I've been meaning to read that -- thanks for reminding me! I wonder if it will have more tree lore as well as planetary influences.

[ElseT]

"Don't be hasty," as Treebeard would say. How about the Ents in Tolkien's "The Two Towers"? Tolkien was a great tree-lover and trees permeate his stories of Middle-earth.

[Cornflower]

Yes!

[Cornflower]

I must read it.

[Cornflower]

Time to read the book again, I think.

[Cornflower]

That last is a great title, and of course you can exhibit proof!