When my mother, Denise, died aged 43, 17-year-old me arrived back to the place where I’d made mud pies and happy memories that would never be the same again. I climbed my favourite apple tree, between Earth and sky and clung to the trunk. While I crumbled, my tree stood tall, cool – its sturdiness momentarily reassuring. Ever since then the constancy and stability of trees have offered me sanctuary and made me feel grounded and protected. They’ve refreshed and relaxed me; they’ve made me feel connected – to my past, to the present moment and to the natural world. They’ve flooded me with fascination, leading me to learn more about their impact on wellbeing.
This book touched my soul. Braiding Sweetgrass blends indigenous wisdom, science, and the teachings of plants to teach an important message about rekindling our relationship with the land.
It’s written with such tender knowing that perhaps it should be given to every child and adult in the world. Overflowing with soulful stories that resonate so deeply it could start a kind of revolution in remembering.
Elizabeth Gilbert says this book is 'like a hymn of love to the world,’ It explores how through listening to the lessons plants teach us, we can enable a cycle of reciprocal flourishing - a tender reminder of the damage that's been done, yet a hopeful and encouraging call towards healing the world we share with so many species.
Called the work of "a mesmerizing storyteller with deep compassion and memorable prose" (Publishers Weekly) and the book that, "anyone interested in natural history, botany, protecting nature, or Native American culture will love," by Library Journal, Braiding Sweetgrass is poised to be a classic of nature writing. As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer asks questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces indigenous teachings that consider plants and animals to be our oldest teachers. Kimmerer brings these two lenses of knowledge together to take "us on a journey that is…
A remarkable book - not just because it's a novel about trees - but because it is so incredibly well-crafted.
No wonder it won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2019. The Overstory cleverly links the stories of nine strangers in the most mesmerizing way with a focal theme of rekindling our relationship with these majestic marvels of nature.
With a wonderfully woven blend of strikingly good fiction with real-life recent scientific discoveries about trees and their own collaborative strength, The Overstory is properly mind-blowing from start to finish and, frankly, one of the best books ever written!
The Overstory, winner of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, is a sweeping, impassioned work of activism and resistance that is also a stunning evocation of-and paean to-the natural world. From the roots to the crown and back to the seeds, Richard Powers's twelfth novel unfolds in concentric rings of interlocking fables that range from antebellum New York to the late twentieth-century Timber Wars of the Pacific Northwest and beyond. There is a world alongside ours-vast, slow, interconnected, resourceful, magnificently inventive, and almost invisible to us. This is the story of a handful of people who learn how to see…
This book makes you think. Is it about greed? Unconditional love? The relationship between the natural world and humans?
Whatever you get from this book it serves as a reminder about how much trees give us but also flags up the importance of kindness (and balance). Do you balance giving with taking? What could you give more of? Your time? Your love? Your money? Your care? Your voice?
If someone is kind to you, always try to pay it forward? Are you balancing how kind you are to others with how kind you are to yourself? Self-care isn't selfish. Self-care is healthcare. Be kind to yourself and be kind to others. It's possible to do both.
As recommended by Meghan Markle as the one book she can't wait to share with her child - the timeless fable about the gift of love
Once there was a little tree ... and she loved a little boy.
So begins the classic bestseller, beautifully written and illustrated by the gifted and versatile Shel Silverstein.
Every day the boy would come to the tree to eat her apples, swing from her branches, or slide down her trunk ... and the tree was happy. But as the boy grew older he began to want more from the tree, and the tree…
This is the woman who first discovered the hidden life and secret language of trees (not Peter Wohlleben who later wrote about this topic too). It was ecologist Suzanne Simard who made the discoveries from a lifetime of study after being raised in the forests of British Columbia.
This book is a dazzling scientific detective story from the ecologist who discovered the symbiotic relationship between the mycorrhizal networks of fungi and tree roots and how trees cooperated, healed each other, and remembered. This is her story and the story of her discoveries of trees wisdom and sentience.
She shares how she came to find the mysterious Mother Trees who nurture their kin and keep the forest going.
NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • From the world's leading forest ecologist who forever changed how people view trees and their connections to one another and to other living things in the forest—a moving, deeply personal journey of discovery
“Finding the Mother Tree reminds us that the world is a web of stories, connecting us to one another. [The book] carries the stories of trees, fungi, soil and bears--and of a human being listening in on the conversation. The interplay of personal narrative, scientific insights and the amazing revelations about the life of the forest make a compelling story.”—Robin Wall…
As much as I love a book about nature, I love books about (and by) badass pioneering women. Meg Lowman is one of these - one of the first-ever tree-top scientists.
It was she who invented one of the first treetop walkways and she shares her amazing story in this book. I love how brave and fearless she was, just climbing hundreds of feet of unchartered territory, solo, into the canopies of Australia's rainforests and how her discoveries literally saved swathes of it.
The book is filled with hope and achievable calls to action as well as her pioneering tale of exploring parts tree that had not yet been explored. A reminder of the importance of trees and also how much those who live in forests matter to their conservation.
One of the world's first tree-top scientists, Meg Lowman is both a pioneer in her field - she invented one of the first treetop walkways - and a tireless advocate for the planet. In a voice as infectious in its enthusiasm as in its practical optimism, The Arbornaut chronicles her irresistible story.
From climbing solo hundreds of feet into Australia's rainforests to measuring tree growth in the northeastern United States, from searching the redwoods of the Pacific coast for new life to studying leaf-eaters in Scotland's Highlands, from a bioblitz in Malaysia to conservation planning in India to collaborating with…
Trees clean the air we breathe, fill us with awe on forest walks and provide timber for the houses we live in, yet there are deeper reasons for our arboreal admiration that go beyond utility and beauty. Tree Glee looks at the psychology behind our fascination with trees, examining how they comfort, restore, and revitalise us and what we can learn from the wisdom of woodlands to improve our own well-being. It shares magical stories of remarkable ancient trees across the globe and invites readers to reflect on their own 'treestory'.
Part practical well-being guide and nature-connection manual, and part call to action. Tree Glee explores how by deepening our appreciation and connection to trees and by celebrating and protecting them, we can flourish together.
I once saw a play at the renowned Oregon Shakespeare Theatre. A play about Sor Juana. It was a good play, but it felt like something was missing like jalapenos left out of enchiladas. The play kept nudging me to look further to find Sor Juana, and so for the next five years, I did so. I read and read more. I listened for her voice, and that is where I heard her life come alive. This isn’t the only possibility for Sor Juana’s life; it is just the one I heard.
Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, this brilliant 17th century nun flew through Mexico City on the breeze of poetry and philosophy. She met with princes of the Church, and with the royalty of Spain and Mexico. Then she met a stunning, powerful woman with lavender eyes, la Vicereine Maria Louisa, and her life changed forever. As her fame grew, she dared to challenge the diabolical Archbishop once too often, and he threw her in front of the Inquisition, where she stood, alone.
Sor Juana's work is studied still today, and justifiably so. Scholars study her months on end; mystics…
This astonishingly brilliant 17th century poet and dramatist, this nun, flew through Mexico City on wings of inspiration. Having no dowry, she chose the life of a nun so that she might learn, so that she might write, so that she might meet the most fascinating people of the western world. She accomplished all of that, and more.
One day a woman with violet eyes, eyes the color of passion flowers, entered her life. It was the new Vicereine, Maria Luisa. As the two most powerful women in Mexico City, the bond between them crossed politics and wound them in…
