The Green Road Into the Trees

Author: Hugh Thomson
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1848093322
Category : England
Languages : en
Pages : 324

Book Description
Award-winning writer, traveller and explorer Hugh Thomson travels the drover-paths and tracks of southern England, those half-covered by bramble and tunnelled by alder, beech and oak: the trails that can still be traced by those who know where to look. From the very centre of England -- literally, as his village is said to be the geographical point furthest from the sea -- he travels out to the furthest edges of the land. The Old Road Into The Trees is a journey enlivened and made rich by the characters he meets along the way. Just as in his acclaimed book about Peru, The White Rock, Hugh shows how older, seemingly forgotten cultures, like the Celts, Saxons and Vikings, lie much closer to the surface than we may think; they have created some of the fault lines of land, wealth and privilege that we still live with. By taking a journey through both the sacred and profane landscapes of Ancient England, Hugh casts unexpected light -- and humour -- on the way we live now.

Across the River and Into the Trees

Author: Ernest Hemingway
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476770034
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Book Description
In the fall of 1948, Ernest Hemingway made his first extended visit to Italy in thirty years. His reacquaintance with Venice, a city he loved, provided the inspiration for Across the River and into the Trees, the story of Richard Cantwell, a war-ravaged American colonel stationed in Italy at the close of the Second World War, and his love for a young Italian countess. A poignant, bittersweet homage to love that overpowers reason, to the resilience of the human spirit, and to the worldweary beauty and majesty of Venice, Across the River and into the Trees stands as Hemingway's statement of defiance in response to the great dehumanizing atrocities of the Second World War. Hemingway's last full-length novel published in his lifetime, it moved John O'Hara in The New York Times Book Review to call him “the most important author since Shakespeare.”

The People in the Trees

Author: Hanya Yanagihara
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 038553678X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 407

Book Description
A thrilling anthropological adventure story with a profound and tragic vision of what happens when cultures collide—from the bestselling author of National Book Award–nominated modern classic, A Little Life “Provokes discussions about science, morality and our obsession with youth.” —Chicago Tribune It is 1950 when Norton Perina, a young doctor, embarks on an expedition to a remote Micronesian island in search of a rumored lost tribe. There he encounters a strange group of forest dwellers who appear to have attained a form of immortality that preserves the body but not the mind. Perina uncovers their secret and returns with it to America, where he soon finds great success. But his discovery has come at a terrible cost, not only for the islanders, but for Perina himself. Look for Hanya Yanagihara’s latest bestselling novel, To Paradise.

Field Guide to the Street Trees of New York City

Author: Leslie Day
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press+ORM
ISBN: 1421402815
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 444

Book Description
“A handbook for naturalists, sidewalk denizens, apartment dwellers, dog-walkers, and bicycle riders . . . No New Yorker should be without this book.” —Wayne Cahilly, New York Botanical Garden New York City is an urban oasis with hundreds of thousands of trees, and this guide acquaints residents and visitors alike with fifty species commonly found in the neighborhoods where people live, work, and travel. Beautiful, original drawings of leaves and stunning photographs of bark, fruit, flower, and twig accompany informative descriptions of each species. Detailed maps of the five boroughs identify all of the city’s neighborhoods, and specific addresses pinpoint where to find a good example of each tree species. Trees provide invaluable benefits to the Big Apple: they reduce the rate of respiratory disease, increase property values, cool homes and sidewalks in the summer, block the harsh winds of winter, clean the air, absorb storm water runoff, and provide habitat and food for the city’s wildlife. Bald cypress, swamp oak, silver linden, and all of New York’s most common trees are just a page turn away. Your evening walk will never be the same once you come to know the quiet giants that line the city’s streets.

The Green Road: A Novel

Author: Anne Enright
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393248224
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 336

Book Description
One of the Guardian's 100 Best Books of the 21st Century "With language so vibrant it practically has a pulse, Enright makes an exquisitely drawn case for the possibility of growth, love and transformation at any age." —People From internationally acclaimed author Anne Enright comes a shattering novel set in a small town on Ireland's Atlantic coast. The Green Road is a tale of family and fracture, compassion and selfishness—a book about the gaps in the human heart and how we strive to fill them. Spanning thirty years, The Green Road tells the story of Rosaleen, matriarch of the Madigans, a family on the cusp of either coming together or falling irreparably apart. As they grow up, Rosaleen's four children leave the west of Ireland for lives they could have never imagined in Dublin, New York, and Mali, West Africa. In her early old age their difficult, wonderful mother announces that she’s decided to sell the house and divide the proceeds. Her adult children come back for a last Christmas, with the feeling that their childhoods are being erased, their personal history bought and sold. A profoundly moving work about a family's desperate attempt to recover the relationships they've lost and forge the ones they never had, The Green Road is Enright's most mature, accomplished, and unforgettable novel to date.

The Wood for the Trees

Author: Richard Fortey
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 1101875763
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 403

Book Description
From the author of Earth: An Intimate History, an exuberant "biography" of four acres of woodland, evoking a cosmos of living and inanimate things and imagining its millennia of existence A few years ago, award-winning scientist Richard Fortey purchased four acres of woodland in the Chiltern Hills of Oxfordshire, England. The Wood for the Trees is the joyful, lyrical portrait of what he found there. With one chapter for each month, we move through the seasons: tree felling in January, moth hunting in June, finding golden mushrooms in September. Fortey, along with the occasional expert friend, investigates the forest top to bottom, discovering a new species and explaining the myriad connections that tie us to nature and nature to itself. His textured, evocative prose and gentle humor illuminate the epic story of a small forest. But he doesn't stop at mere observation. The Wood for the Trees uses the forest as a springboard back through time, full of rich and unexpected tales of the people, plants, and animals that once called the land home. With Fortey's help, we come to see a universe in miniature.

The White Rock

Author: Hugh Thomson
Publisher: Abrams
ISBN: 1468302302
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 362

Book Description
An explorer searches the Peruvian Andes for a lost ruin in “a gem of a book [that] transcends the travel writing genre” with fascinating Inca history (Los Angeles Times). A New York Times Notable Book With the backdrop of the ever-intriguing Andes mountains, Hugh Thomson explores the intoxicating history of the Inca people and their heartland. The author, an acclaimed documentary filmmaker and explorer, expertly weaves accounts of his own discoveries and brushes with danger with the history of those who preceded him—including the explorer Hiram Bingham, who discovered Machu Picchu; the twentieth century South American photographer, Martín Chambi; the poet Pablo Neruda; and the Spanish conquistadores who destroyed the Inca civilization—and the eccentric characters he meets on his travels. Following in the footsteps of the explorers Gene Savoy and Hiram Bingham, Thomson set off into the jungle to find the lost city of Llactapat. This is the story of his journey to discover it via the interconnecting paths the Incas laid across the Andes.

The Trees

Author: Ali Shaw
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1632862840
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 496

Book Description
The Trees. They arrived in the night: wrenching through the ground, thundering up into the air, and turning Adrien's suburban street into a shadowy forest. Shocked by the sight but determined to get some answers, he ventures out, passing destroyed buildings, felled power lines, and broken bodies still wrapped in tattered bed linens hanging from branches. It is soon apparent that no help is coming and that these trees, which seem the work of centuries rather than hours, span far beyond the town. As far, perhaps, as the coast, where across the sea in Ireland, Adrien's wife is away on a business trip and there is no way of knowing whether she is alive or dead. When Adrien meets Hannah, a woman who, unlike him, believes that the coming of the trees may signal renewal rather than destruction and Seb, her technology-obsessed son, they persuade him to join them. Together, they pack up what remains of the lives they once had and set out on a quest to find Hannah's forester brother and Adrien's wife--and to discover just how deep the forest goes. Their journey through the trees will take them into unimaginable territory: to a place of terrible beauty and violence, of deadly enemies and unexpected allies, to the dark heart of nature and the darkness--and also the power--inside themselves.

A Sanctuary of Trees

Author: Gene Logsdon
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
ISBN: 1603584013
Category : BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY
Languages : en
Pages : 250

Book Description
As author Gene Logsdon puts it, "We are all tree huggers." But not just for sentimental or even environmental reasons. Humans have always depended on trees for our food, shelter, livelihood, and safety. In many ways, despite the Grimm's fairy-tale version of the dark, menacing forest, most people still hold a deep cultural love of woodland settings, and feel right at home in the woods. In this latest book, A Sanctuary of Trees, Logsdon offers a loving tribute to the woods, tracing the roots of his own home groves in Ohio back to the Native Americans and revealing his own history and experiences living in many locations, each of which was different, yet inextricably linked with trees and the natural world. Whether as an adolescent studying at a seminary or as a journalist living just outside Philadelphia's city limits, Gene has always lived and worked close to the woods, and his curiosity and keen sense of observation have taught him valuable lessons about a wide variety of trees: their distinct characteristics and the multiple benefits and uses they have. In addition to imparting many fascinating practical details of woods wisdom, A Sanctuary of Trees is infused with a philosophy and descriptive lyricism that is born from the author's passionate and lifelong relationship with nature: There is a point at which the tree shudders before it begins its descent. Then slowly it tips, picks up speed, often with a kind of wailing death cry from rending wood fibers, and hits the ground with a whump that literally shakes the earth underfoot. The air, in the aftermath, seems to shimmy and shiver, as if saturated with static electricity. Then follows an eerie silence, the absolute end to a very long life. Fitting squarely into the long and proud tradition of American nature writing, A Sanctuary of Trees also reflects Gene Logsdon's unique personality and perspective, which have marked him over the course of his two dozen previous books as the authentic voice of rural life and traditions.

The Journeys of Trees: A Story about Forests, People, and the Future

Author: Zach St. George
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 1324001615
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Book Description
An urgent and illuminating portrait of forest migration, and of the people studying the forests of the past, protecting the forests of the present, and planting the forests of the future. Forests are restless. Any time a tree dies or a new one sprouts, the forest that includes it has shifted. When new trees sprout in the same direction, the whole forest begins to migrate, sometimes at astonishing rates. Today, however, an array of obstacles—humans felling trees by the billions, invasive pests transported through global trade—threaten to overwhelm these vital movements. Worst of all, the climate is changing faster than ever before, and forests are struggling to keep up. A deft blend of science reporting and travel writing, The Journeys of Trees explores the evolving movements of forests by focusing on five trees: giant sequoia, ash, black spruce, Florida torreya, and Monterey pine. Journalist Zach St. George visits these trees in forests across continents, finding sequoias losing their needles in California, fossil records showing the paths of ancient forests in Alaska, domesticated pines in New Zealand, and tender new sprouts of blight-resistant American chestnuts in New Hampshire. Everywhere he goes, St. George meets lively people on conservation’s front lines, from an ecologist studying droughts to an evolutionary evangelist with plans to save a dying species. He treks through the woods with activists, biologists, and foresters, each with their own role to play in the fight for the uncertain future of our environment. An eye-opening investigation into forest migration past and present, The Journeys of Trees examines how we can all help our trees, and our planet, survive and thrive.