Discover the majesty of trees with these 11 books – Modern Mrs Darcy
Let me tell you how I became a card-carrying member of the Arbor Day Foundation and began a running list on my Notes app of cool trees I want to plant in my yard. (Juniper, yew, black locust, Jerusalem cherry, and mustard tree, in case you’re wondering.)
It’s not a traditional path. It all started with singer-songwriter Andrew Peterson’s memoir (more about it below!) quoting theologian N. T. Wright’s book Surprised by Hope, which alluded to the famous quote by even older theologian, Martin Luther: “If I believed the world were to end tomorrow, I would still plant a tree today.”
Something about the importance, ancientness, and life-giving nature of trees fascinated me. Where did I start to learn more about these integral parts of our natural world that I’d previously mostly ignored? With books, of course. One led to another and another, not unlike the small seeds themselves leading to a fully-grown tree, or even a whole forest.
These fiction and nonfiction books are representative of a growing (pun intended!) bookshelf dedicated to trees and forests, but I’d love to hear your recommendations. Please share in the comments.
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An MMD Book Club member told me about this book when I traveled to Tokyo for the cherry blossom season a couple years ago and it was so right up my alley: what we’ve affectionately dubbed “microhistory books” in my house. I could hardly believe this narrative nonfiction story about an English gentleman who fell in love with a particular variety of cherry blossom, and planted them all over the world. The trees I saw in Tokyo are there because of his fascination; he recognized one in a painting years after he had brought the same variety back as a cutting after falling in love with the blossoms on his honeymoon there, and was able to then return the beloved blossoms to Japan after they were thought extinct. More info →
This spiritual memoir is a life told through trees, from the giant maples in the front yard of the parson’s house, Peterson’s childhood home, to the trees that make up the Chapter House, where the singer-songwriter houses his studio. His simple sketches throughout add to the beauty, and made me think about the trees of my life: the pear tree in my Mamaw’s yard, the weeping willow in a certain young man’s neighborhood where we stole kisses as a teenager, that giant live oak covered in Spanish moss that I paced and paced and paced around as a young adult, listening and learning to a wise older mentor, the puny, but priceless Japanese maple in my current yard that I’ve fallen in love with and hope to care for as long as I’m able. More info →
Eleanor falls in love with a farm as a young single woman, in part because of Old Ashworthy, the big old gorgeous tree on the property. As she marries and her family grows, that tree plays a part, watching over them all until a series of culminating events made me call my best friend and beg her to tell me how it ended, lest I not be able to bear how it finished. She wouldn’t tell me the specifics, but she assured me that it has a satisfying ending, and she was right—tree included. This was my first Joyce Maynard, but it certainly won’t be my last. How the Light Gets In, out just last summer, continues the story of Eleanor’s family. More info →
Victoria runs the household for her father and brother until a young romantic figure drifts through town and changes her life forever. Though her relationships with her family and neighbors change, her relationship with the family’s peach orchard is a constant in her life, as is her life-saving interest in nature, botany, and the surrounding wilderness. After I finished this riveting fiction, I was shocked to learn it was inspired by a true story of the destruction of Iola, Colorado in the 1960s. More info →
This book has been recommended to me again and again when I’ve admitted I love trees. Trees have already provided me with hours of health and happiness but for times when I can’t make my way into the actual forest, this full-color book of photography immerses me in the Japanese art of forests as medicine. That something so beautiful can lower stress and blood pressure, strengthen my heart and immune system, and boost my mood and creativity doesn’t surprise me but it does delight me. More info →
I happened upon this nerdy book written by the “real-life Lorax” Meg Lowman in a used bookstore in Northampton, Massachusetts, and couldn’t resist buying and adding it to my TBR list. Lowman is an explorer of the “eighth continent”: a region ranging from the trees in Australia to the American northern Pacific region to the Scottish highlands to India to Malaysia. The publisher bills this as part-memoir and part-field manual and I’m all in. More info →
This 500+ page tome intimidated me until Modern Mrs Darcy Book Club members agreed to participate in a Community Pick buddy read with me a couple of years back. Reading Powers’s smart and symbolic literary fiction in community was exactly right because fellow readers were able to point out all the connections I’d missed in this rich, thickly-woven landscape. The trees themselves are characters in the sweeping chronicle of time and place. More info →
I melted for this story about a little girl, her mom, and their new friend, brought together by grief … and trees, of course. Cohen’s writing has an ethereal element to it, just right for being in the thick of a forest. All of his settings and people feel very real, but also imbued with a touch of hopeful enchantment that makes the world in his novel feel a little bit sparkly. More info →
Trees communicate. Did you know that? I certainly did not until German forester Peter Wohlleben convinced me that trees are even more amazing than we thought. While all the facts packed into this modern botany classic could have been dry, Wohlleben’s writing, as translated by Jane Billinghurst, read like a romantic poet somehow wrote a riveting textbook. I thought of leaving this off because I thought, hasn’t everyone already read this one? But when it comes to the reading life, that’s never the case. I couldn’t risk someone missing out on this seminal text. More info →
Cherry trees serve as an apt metaphor to evoke both life’s sweetness and tartness, as well for Lara’s old friend and flame, the famous actor Peter Duke. As Lara sits for hours and hours in the cherry orchard, telling her daughters the story of her life before them, the steady and stabilizing trees preside over the family’s legacy as Ann Patchett unspools the narrative set in the Michigan landscape. More info →
I talked Baylee’s ear off about my tree obsession last year during a Patreon bonus episode featuring the MMD Team’s Best Summer Books. This lushly illustrated book shows just how many different forms a hobby can take. Because of this book, I have tracked down obscure documentaries, headed out to my own local natural history museum to see wood collections, watched artists and environmentalists on YouTube, and joined Facebook groups so I can follow the circular tree forests of Ethiopia in which I am now deeply invested. More info →
What are your favorite books about trees? Please share in the comments.
Ginger Horton is our Book Club Community Manager here at MMD. Her go-to genres are literary fiction and classics. You can find Ginger on Instagram posting as herself @gthorton or in the MMD Book Club account @MMDBookClub
