Reading list

Tree stories

THE OVERSTORY

Richard Powers, Penguin, £9.99

American author Richard Powers’ majestic, epic and redemptive novel about our human relationship to trees, covering over a century of history in the United States, is a mindblowing education in ecological and natural history. What starts as a seemingly unconnected series of stories about the place of trees in people’s lives weaves together into a profound story about human impact and the possibilities of activism. Powers inspired my own book, For The Love Of Trees, a collection of real-life stories around people’s connection with trees. It made me think I wanted to collect real testimonies of the type he created in fiction. “This is not our world with trees in it,” he writes. “It’s a world of trees, where humans have just arrived.”

THE HIDDEN LIFE OF TREES

Peter Wohlleben, William Collins, £9.99

I doubt any writer has done more to convey to the public the scientific discoveries around the complex lives of trees than Peter Wohlleben. Drawing on research by the likes of Professor Suzanne Simard, he paints a picture of trees as complex social beings, ponders whether they feel pain, considers how they learn, and describes the fungal and root interconnections between them that have been called “the woodwide web”. Wohlleben, an ex-forester, who has described himself as formerly a butcher of trees, also tells the story about how he first stumbled on these revelations. It all began with a stump that was still living though 400 years old, supported by surrounding trees in the forest.

OAK AND ASH AND THORN: THE ANCIENT WOODS AND NEW FORESTS OF BRITAIN Peter Fiennes, Oneworld Publications, £10.99

Angry, quirky and beautifully lyrical, Peter Fiennes history of British forests is part autobiography, part literary appreciation and most of all an urgent cry for us to protect and nurture our woodlands. In one marvellous, sweeping section he tells the entire history of Britain since the last Ice Age in relation to significant events for trees. The story starts slow, with a gradual reforesting of the land as the ice melts back, then the appearance of humans, but events rapidly pile on in the last few paragraphs.