The Guardian Bookshop makes over 180,000 books available with up to 40% discount, as well as highlighting some of our favourite publications in each genre.
Find out more.
Primarily about beech trees, but also with info on global warming and the wildlife associated with them. Covering Europe as well as Britain, Mabey traces the history of the beech tree and its uses, from fuel for Rome's glassworks to oars for the ships in Venice, and highlights the importance of the beech tree in our future. 'Britain's greatest living nature writer' "The Times"
Synopsis
Beech trees reached Britain about 8,000 years ago, and they were workhorses, not ornaments - fuel for Rome's glassworks; firewood for London; and, oars for the ships of Venice. This title covers Europe as well as Britain, and history and natural history.
Book Details
Publisher:
VINTAGE
Publication Date:
04-Sep-2008
ISBN:
9781844139200
Guardian review
Beechcombings
Judith Rice the guardian Fri 19 September 2008
Framed by the great storm of 1987, that "cataclysm of trees", Mabey's book reflects on the interactions of humankind with nature by assembling a history of the narratives we have constructed around trees, beeches in particular. The series of essays is roughly chronological in order, but with much reverie along the way. Mabey anxiously muses on the management of his wood in the Chilterns; explains how the idea of "plantation" made trees into machines for the production of timber to build ships, and thus altered "the fundamental grammar of our relationship" with them; traces the impact of the notion, of the picturesque, of landscape gardening, and of enclosure on the English landscape. People, he says, have wanted to possess trees and have assumed they cannot thrive without our intervention. They have projected images of order and stability where none exists. This book is an appeal to let nature be, to trust it to look after itself, to recognise it as process rather than a static image of perfection.