Books about Trees on The Point with Mindy Todd

This morning Mindy and Jill were joined by Dennis Minsky, naturalist and a big reader! It is always fun for us when Dennis is able to find time to drive from Provincetown to Woods Hole to join us. We have previously talked with Dennis about nature books, maritime books, whaling books, and bird books. When we are done with the show, our books to read list is always longer than it was before we began, and we hope yours are as well! Dennis and I had both brought so many titles that we didn’t have time for, that we are making an extra long list today of both books we mentioned and books that we did not have time to mention, but are terrific. Miss the show? You can listen online!

I want to particularly thank our caller who suggested I read Trees in a Winter Landscape by Alice Smith, and to let her know that I was able to request a copy of the book from off Cape, so I should be seeing a copy soon! (And thus she won’t have to drive to Falmouth to deliver me a copy, but thanks so much for the offer!)

After we went off the air, I got an e-mail from a listener who wrote:

“I kicked myself for not remembering my decades old theory that looking at the sunset through winter trees was the inspiration for church stained glass.” What a grand theory!

Dennis’s Picks

“Lost” a poem by David Wagoner

The Hidden Life of Trees: what they feel, how they communicate: discoveries from a secret world by Peter Wohlleben

Thoreau and the Language of Trees by Richard Higgins

Essays: a fully annotated edition by Henry David Thoreau, specifically the essays: “Wild Apples,” “Walking,” “Autumnal Tints” and “The Succession of Forest Trees”

At the Edge of the Orchard by Tracy Chevalier

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

Barkskins, a novel by Annie Proulx

American Canopy: trees, forests, and the making of a nation by Erick Rutkow

Lab Girl by Hope Jahren

Cape Cod Shore Whaling: America’s first whalemen by John Braginton-Smith and Duncan Oliver

Not Enough Time For:

Remarkable Trees Of The World by Thomas Parkenham

Trees, Woodlands, and Western Civilization by Richard Hayman

A Natural History Of Trees by Donald Culross Peattie

Jill’s Picks

Winter Trees by William Carlos Williams (and you can find lots more W.C. Williams in his Collected Poems!)

The Long, Long Life of Trees by Fiona Stafford

From the Forest: a search for the hidden roots of our fairy tales by Sara Maitland

Nature Writings by John Muir (Particularly his essay The American Forests.)

Trees by W. S. Merwin (and lots more tree poems can be found in Collected Poems, 1952-1993.) You also need to watch Even Though the Whole World is Burning, a documentary on W. S. Merwin and the trees he is trying to save.

The Tree by John Fowles

Novels in which trees play a role:

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee (and notice the tree on the book jacket!)

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

Garden Spells by Sarah Addison Allen

East of Eden by John Steinbeck (as suggested by Brian Engles)

Wishtree by Katherine Applegate (as suggested by Brian Engles)

And, of course, Shakespeare!

Not enough time for:

The Book of Trees: visualizing branches of knowledge by Manuel Lima

Arboreal: a collection of new woodland writing edited by Adrian Cooper (Includes essays, photos, and stories by, among others Andy Goldworthy, Ali Smith, Philip Hoare, and Germaine Greer.)

Oak: the frame of civilization by William Bryant Logan

Be in a Treehouse by Pete Nelson (Includes the Hidden Hollow Treehouse at the Heritage Museum & Gardens in Sandwich)

The Songs of Trees: stories from nature’s great connectors by David George Haskell

Maple on Tap: making your own maple syrup by Rich Finzer

Picture Books

Sugaring Time by Kathryn Lasky with photographs by Christopher G. Knight

The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein

Poetrees by Douglas Florian

The Tree Lady by H. Joseph Hopkins, illustrated by Jill McElmurry

Patron Suggestions

American Canopy: trees, forests and the making of a nation by Eric Rutlow

Founding Gardeners by Andrea Wolfe