Customer Reviews

The Story of the Apple

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A wonderfully written exploration of the story of the apple. The author traces the tale through the botany, history, geology, art, literature, zoology that influenced this important fruit. Extremely readable, and beautifully illustrated with original artwork and photos, the author guides us through thousands of years of history from Adam and Eve through to Johnny Appleseed. Loved the book. Highly recommend.

This book is rich with information, clearly written, beautifully illustrated. It is scholarly but never dull, with wonderful tidbits such as the string of dried apples found in the tomb of a queen of Ur, tales of the Silk Road, and an account of a colorful 18th C. British botanist who was expelled from Cambridge University "for questionable behavior". If you have any interest in trees, cooking, horticulture, or history, you should read this book!

I'm researching a long term project on apples and this book has an excellent place on my bookshelf. It's well written and full of great information. Do your best to get through the very scientific beginning! They really could have done a better job at wording things for the layman. And when you buy this--the first thing you should do is either create an index of maps, or put tabs on the pages with maps. They are always referring to this or that map and you have NO way of finding them but for some system you create (maybe they took care of this in the paperback?). But these complaints are relatively quibbles--the balance is quite simply wonderful. Apples are an amazing group of plants--in studying them you'll learn about life and its evolution--and this book will be a great help in this journey.

This is not an easy read. Have a look at the sneak peak provided, I suggest going to page 20. This is what most of the book is like. This may be appropriate for the invested horticultural undergrad or Ph.D. seeker, but for the casual reader it is a strong soporific. There is a lot of information regarding the origins of the apple if you can cope with the depth of the explanation that includes geology and plate tectonics. I am hoping for a revision incorporating findings of new DNA sequencing technologies AND editing by a writer to improve the readability of the prose.