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Lives of the Trees: An Uncommon History by [Diana Wells]

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Diana Wells

Lives of the Trees: An Uncommon History Kindle Edition

by Diana Wells (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.5 65 ratings

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Diana Wells, author of 100 Flowers and How They Got Their Names now turns her attention to something bigger—our deep-rooted relationship with trees. As she investigates the names and meanings of trees, telling their legends and lore, she reminds us of just how innately bound we are to these protectors of our planet. Since the human race began, we have depended on them for food, shade, shelter and fuel, not to mention furniture, musical instruments, medicine utensils and more.

Wells has a remarkable ability to dig up the curious and the captivating: At one time, a worm found in a hazelnut prognosticated ill fortune. Rowan trees were planted in churchyards to prevent the dead from rising from their graves. Greek arrows were soaked in deadly yew, and Shakespeare’s witches in Macbeth used “Gall of goat and slips of Yew” to make their lethal brew. One bristlecone pine, at about 4,700 years old, is thought to be the oldest living plant on earth. All this and more can be found in the beautifully illustrated pages (themselves born of birch bark!) of 100 Trees.

Print length

384 pages
Language

English
Sticky notes

On Kindle Scribe
Publisher

Algonquin Books
Publication date

January 19, 2010
File size

6811 KB
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Enabled
Word Wise

Not Enabled
Enhanced typesetting

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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Diana Wells is the author of 100 Birds and How They Got Their Names and 100 Flowers and How They Got Their Names, has written for Friends Journal, and is contributing editor of the journal Greenprints. Born in Jerusalem, she has lived in England and Italy and holds an honors degree in history from Oxford University. She now lives with her husband on a farm in Pennsylvania. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

From Booklist

Because trees make so many more aspects of our lives possible and pleasurable than we realize, Wells felt compelled to reintroduce us to these miraculous sentries, companions, and providers, entities that make the earth both bountiful and beautiful. Long considered sacred by diverse cultures, trees are crucial in this time of accelerated climate change, thanks to their ability to counteract the deleterious impact of carbon emissions. Trees offer shade, shelter, and quiet; medicine and food; and building materials for everything from houses to books. Trees are wreathed with lore and continue to yield scientific discoveries, yet, Wells observes, “We can even live on a street named for a particular tree and not be able to identify the tree itself.” To rectify this loss of invaluable knowledge, Wells portrays 100 trees, beginning with acacia and ending with yew, in a tree album containing lovely drawings and pithy essays. Cinnamon, ginkgo, “small and spiny” frankincense, mahogany, Osage orange, sycamore—all are succinctly described and celebrated in this warmly informative, fun-to-browse book of colorful tree histories. --Donna Seaman --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B003L7826S
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Algonquin Books (January 19, 2010)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ January 19, 2010
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 6811 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 384 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #691,457 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #50 in Gardening & Horticulture Essays (Kindle Store)
- #56 in Gardening & Horticulture Trees
- #118 in Botany of Trees

Customer Reviews:
4.5 65 ratings

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Diana Wells

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Diana Wells is the author of 100 flowers and How They Got Their Names and contributing editor to the journal Greenprints. Born in Jerusalem, she has lived in England and Italy and holds an honors degree in history from Oxford University. She now lives with her husband, an artist, on a farm in Pennsylvania.

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5

65 global ratings

5 star		68%
4 star		18%
3 star		9%
2 star		3%
1 star		3%

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Top reviews from the United States

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Christoph Topher

A good addition for woodworkers and tree lovers alike

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 10, 2010

Verified Purchase

It's a fantastic book. I'm a professional furniture maker and I work in all types of different woods. Each wood has it's own distinct charecteristics, smell, color, texture, density, etc. This was a good book for me, as I like to have little bits of information and stories to pass along to my clients regarding their order.

Anyone wanting to know bits of trivia or snippets of history regarding trees will love this. It's a great handbook, and a fun and relaxing read weather you've got 2 minutes or 2 hours.

Many thanks to the author and publisher for assembling such a useful book outside the realm of a manual or botanical text.

5 people found this helpful

Helpful

Just me

I love this book.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 11, 2015

Verified Purchase

I love this book. It is not a concise book of everyspecies. Instead it gives you interesting and obscure facts about most species....just the kind of thing I like to read....I read this book little by little, whenever I am bored for a minute or two I read a chapter, and I must say that I almost always end up investigating some intruging fact about that species. It leads me to want to know more about that tree or its wood or its uses...I just love this book.

8 people found this helpful

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Saundra

Lives of the Trees: An Uncommon History

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 14, 2012

Verified Purchase

Trees are a part of life, at times worshiped as the connection between heaven and earth, and always used for survival, but what do we really know about them? Diana Wells has produced a collection about trees that will astonish, inform and entertain. The specimens she chose to research are often recognizable to this reader, but some are not. To know more about them, to trace the travels of a tree around the world, to know how it landed in a particular area and then flourished, reveals much of humanities's need to explore and acquire.

2 people found this helpful

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R. J.

Very informative easy read

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 6, 2012

Verified Purchase

I enjoyed this book greatly it presented the subject material in layman's terms, and didn't get you bogged down in the scientific jargon. Very useful and readable for us non botanists. I would recommend it to any layman who is interested in learning about the trees we take for granted each day.

2 people found this helpful

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Caresalot

Relaxing read...

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 9, 2012

Verified Purchase

This book is a treasure trove of information, the variety and depth of the anecdotes is charming. I learned so much and definitely suggest this book to all those who appreciate trees. It certainly offers an enjoyable learning experience.

Helpful

traveler

Interesting, but too many details

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 7, 2015

Verified Purchase

Author did good job collecting all the info. For me, it was a little bit too much. I would prefer to have shorter information with only the most interesting stories.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 17, 2013

Verified Purchase

Apparently I didnt read the description properly. I wasn't expecting a "text book " on trees. I was expecting more of a"story " about trees. However --I DO like the book as an informative background about more variety of trees than I knew exsisted!! Well written for the average person to appreciate and understand.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 11, 2010

Verified Purchase

One does not need to be a botanist or even a tree-hugger to love this book. This is a concise history of a number of trees, how they got their names, myths and facts, occurrences in literature and many other fascinating bits of information on common and not so common trees. I loved it and bought several copies as gifts.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

Tish

Lives of the Trees.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 30, 2013

Verified Purchase

This was a present for my son-in-law's birthday.

He is a keen gardener and really enjoyed receiving it. He has fund it very useful.

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