DIVIn this insightful and provocative book, Alon Tal provides a detailed account of Israeli forests, tracing their history from the Bible to the present, and outlines the effort to transform drylands and degraded soils into prosperous parks, rangelands, and ecosystems. Tal’s description of Israel’s trials and errors, and his exploration of both the environmental history and the current policy dilemmas surrounding that country's forests, will provide valuable lessons in the years to come for other parts of the world seeking to reestablish timberlands./div

This "stunning journey through a country that is home to exhilarating natural wonders, and a scarring colonial past . . . makes breathtakingly clear the connection between nature and humanity, and offers a singular portrait of the complexities inherent to our ideas of identity, family, and love" (Refinery29). A chance discovery of letters written by her immigrant grandfather leads Jessica J. Lee to her ancestral homeland, Taiwan. There, she seeks his story while growing closer to the land he knew. Lee hikes mountains home to Formosan flamecrests, birds found nowhere else on earth, and swims in a lake of drowned cedars. She bikes flatlands where spoonbills alight by fish farms, and learns about a tree whose fruit can float in the ocean for years, awaiting landfall. Throughout, Lee unearths surprising parallels between the natural and human stories that have shaped her family and their beloved island. Joyously attentive to the natural world, Lee also turns a critical gaze upon colonialist explorers who mapped the land and named plants, relying on and often effacing the labor and knowledge of local communities. Two Trees Make a Forest is a genre–shattering book encompassing history, travel, nature, and memoir, an extraordinary narrative showing how geographical forces are interlaced with our family stories.

A Californian may vacation in Yosemite, Big Sur, or Death Valley, but many of us come home to an oak woodland. Yet, while common, oak woodlands are anything but ordinary. In a book rich in illustration and suffused with wonder, author Kate Marianchild combines extensive research and years of personal experience to explore some of the marvelous plants and animals that the oak woodlands nurture. Acorn woodpeckers unite in marriages of up to ten mates and raise their young cooperatively. Ground squirrels roll in rattlesnake skins to hide their scent from hungry snakes. Manzanita's rust-colored, paper-thin bark peels away in time for the summer solstice, exposing sinuous contours that are cool to the touch even on the hottest day. Conveying up-to-the-minute scientific findings with a storyteller's skill, Marianchild introduces us to a host of remarkable creatures in a world close by, a world that "rustles, hums, and sings with the sounds of wild things."

From the New York Times-bestselling author of The Hidden Life of Trees, this guide to awakening your senses and engaging deeply with the forest is the perfect gift for hikers and walkers. “This book will fast-track you into the joys of spending time amongst the trees.”—Tristan Gooley, author of The Lost Art of Reading Nature’s Signs and How to Read Water "You'll be changed after reading this fine and enchanting book.”—Richard Louv, author of Our Wild Calling and Last Child in the Woods When you walk in the woods, do you use all five senses to explore your surroundings? For most of us, the answer is no—but when we do, a walk in the woods can go from pleasant to immersive and restorative. Forest Walking teaches you how to engage with the forest by decoding nature’s signs and awakening to the ancient past and thrilling present of the ecosystem around you. What can you learn by following the spread of a root, by tasting the tip of a branch, by searching out that bitter almond smell? What creatures can be found in a stream if you turn over a rock—and what is the best way to cross a forest stream, anyway? How can you understand a forest’s history by the feel of the path underfoot, the scars on the trees along the trail, or the play of sunlight through the branches? How can we safely explore the forest at night? What activities can we use to engage children with the forest? Throughout Forest Walking, the authors share experiences and observations from visiting forests across North America: from the rainforests and redwoods of the west coast to the towering white pines of the east, and down to the cypress swamps of the south and up to the boreal forests of the north. With Forest Walking, German forester Peter Wohlleben teams up with his longtime editor, Jane Billinghurst, as the two write their first book together, and the result is nothing short of spectacular. Together, they will teach you how to listen to what the forest is saying, no matter where you live or which trees you plan to visit next.

A beautifully written classic of nature writing. 'A masterly account...of supreme interest...a classic' Country Life Long accepted as the best work on the subject, Oliver Rackham's book is both a comprehensive history of Britain's woodland and a field-work guide that presents trees individually and as part of the landscape. From prehistoric times, through the Roman period and into the Middle Ages, Oliver Rackham describes the changing character, role and history of trees and woodland. He concludes this definitive study with a section on the conservation and future of Britain's trees, woodlands and hedgerows.

A landowner's manual for forest management in New England

In this book, Richard Hayman traces the different values and virtues people have seen in trees and forests over the course of history, reflecting the changing use of woodland and the effects of deforestation and urbanization. Tacitus, followed by Romantics and historians of liberty, located freedom in the German forests. Medieval forests were both protected hunting parks and the refuge of Robin Hood. Shakespeare contrasted the simplicity of life in the Forest of Arden with the artificial manners of the court. Since the 18th century, poets such as Wordsworth, Clare, and Hardy have drawn inspiration from trees. How we see trees today will dictate how trees are treated in the future.