Reading Trees

I'm on a list about literature and the environment, and someone recently put out a call for recommendations of texts (books and film) about trees. The following list is compiled from people's responses, and includes photographic works, poetry, prose fiction and essay.

Anderson, William (1990). Green Man : The Archetype of our Oneness with the Earth.

Burroughs, John “Maple Sugar Days” Chap 9 and “Flowering Plants” Chap 10 in John Burroughs’ America.

Calvino, Italo (1957). Le Baron Perché. (The Baron in The Trees) (Il Barone Rampante)

Dean, Barbara (1992). “Hunting a Christmas Tree”. In “Orion” reprinted in Finding
Home.

Ehrenfeld, David (1997). “The Gingko and the Stump” & “Death of the Plastic Palm” (1998), in “Orion” and also collected in (2002). Swimming Lessons : Keeping Afloat in the Age of Technology.

Fowles, John & Frank Horvat (1979) The Tree.

Geisel, Theodor Seuss (1971). The Lorax

Giono, Jean (circa 1953). L’homme qui plantait des arbres. (The Man Who Planted Trees). Also in a 1987 NFB animated film by Frédéric Back.

Harrison, Robert (1992). Forêts : Essai sur l’imaginaire occidental.

Leopold, Aldo (1949). “Good Oak”, in A Sand County Almanac.

Livingston, John (1986). “Some Reflections on Integrated Wildlife and Forest Management”, The Trumpeter, 3(3)

Nolley, Lance & Berman, Ted (1958). Paul Bunyan. Disney short animated film.

Pyle, Robert Michael (1993). The Thunder Tree.

Rogers, Patiann (1999). “Places within Places” in The Dream of the Marsh Wren.

Sanders, Scott Russell (1993). “Earth’s Body” in Staying Put : Making a Home in a Restless World.

Sanders, Scott Russell (2000). “Heartwood” and “Wood Work” in The Force of Moving
Spirit.

Savard, Rémi (2004). La forêt vive: Récits fondateurs du peuple innu.

Stone, Christopher (1972). Should Trees Have Standing : Toward Legal Rights for Natural Objects.

Terpstra, John (1990) Naked Trees.

Yahgulanass, Michael Nicoll (). The Flight of the Hummingbird.

Reading, read, red

Just this week finished reading and it made my week more interesting and made me laugh out loud in the bath and at the breakfast table as I carried it dog eared with me around the house reading, and now I want to recomend it to everyone:
Fear of Flying - Erica Jong

Read all in a flurry on my week in Adelaide when I needed 'reading in bed' material and 'reading in the hotel bath' material and leant to me by my mum:
T is for something arother - a Kinsey Millhone mystery by Sue Grafton

Finished a while ago but don't want to really give back to the library because I really like some of pictures:
Put the Book back on the Shelf - a belle and Sebastian Anthology (graphic novel), and
A book of textile art from the early 1900's which designs that make me sigh and gasp with wonder

Kind of read one chapter of this good classic sustainability text and took it all the way to Adelaide and back in my suitcase and really think I would like to read it if only it wasn't competing with rollicking stories and good picture books:
Believing Cassandra - being an optimist in a pessimists world - Alan AtKisson

They are sitting on my desk unread from yet another library and making a little paper fortress which is stoping another pile of paper from avalanching across and spilling dramatically on the floor:
Assortment of social research text books and teribly earnest sciencey-engineering books about cleaning up soil

They have been lent to me and are waiting if I should need them for light relief but so far not started:
A Phryne Fisher Mystery and a Evanovich mystery

They have been redistribuited this week to other people who cook and eat meat:
Some old recipe books that have lovely recipes that I will never make

They are sitting on a large trestle table and being fossicked through by kids and people with small dogs:
A kazillion second hand books at the book fair outside my local library

Read these recently

The Pratchett was lent to me when I ran out of other things to read in Vietnam (apart from work books and really didn't want to read work books), the Phalahniuk was a airport impulse purchase, and the Ian Rankin was a birthday pressie from my flatmate. The green self help book was another impulse purchase when I was in the shop getting a copy for my other flatmate as a 'get well' present (she'd told me about it and said she'd like it).

Pratchett and rankin were as you'd expect. The Chuck book grated a bit at first with it's dense lists of factoids assembled as paragraphs (in the section 'people together' which are mostly essays for magazines on zany cultural events), but then became more interesting for me when he weaved in more personal stories (in the section 'portarits' and 'personal'). I think the one 'Almost California' about his own experience of going to LA for the making of the screenplay of fight club and the disconnect between his wildest dreams as a writer in the past and then what it felt like having those be realised is very poignant and extremely raw, very good stuff. That junction of writer as celebrity and writer as teller of eth story behind celebrity is interesting. The stories about his dad's recent murder were amazing. That this most horrible, pointless and suddent event is just woven into a couple of the stories makes it even more powerful - like you wonder 'fuck, how can he get it together to keep functioning and concentrating on all this other stuff when that has happened?' - his processing seems all the more powerful because it is restrained.

More on 'refuse to choose' later.

The 'to read' pile

here are pictures of my 'to read' piles :) Not getting any smaller, but I have vowed to pause on my second hand book buying so that I might catch up a bit on the backlog waiting to be read.

Aunty B's book shelf floweth over

Hi fellow booknerds! I seem to be reading faster than I'm blogging at the moment. Must be those dragging summer sun-filled days. So if you're hungry to find out what's been in the bedside pile at B's - you get to vote! (And I don't mean dirty socks and knickers either) Would you rather hear about:

Clash of the fundamentalisms - Tariq Ali
Reading Lolita in Tehran - Azar Nafisi
Playboy Book of Short Stories - Various, including Keroauc, Nabokov et al
100 Years of Solitude - Gael Garcia Marquez
The Infinite Plan - Isabel Allende
The Men Who Stare at Goats - Jon Ronson
Dead Famous - Ben Elton

Ooh the tension is almost too much to bear.

Recently read "B is for Burglar" by Sue Grafton. Thanks for the tip-off, Miss J - this was a thrilling over-the-weekend read. Loved the main characters jaded attitute and sarcastic sense of humour, and the attention to detail about the characters in the book.

Now reading:
"The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver
"Wrong about Japan" by Peter Carey (non-fiction)
"Raw Spirit - in Search of the Perfect Dram" by Iain Banks (also non-fiction, about an author being put in the enviable position of being asked by his publishers to tour Scotland tasting all the different whiskys and writing about them. I read this when I am having a Scotch!!).

Next in queue:
"My life as a fake" (see below)
and then I think it's time for another book by Haruki Murakami - have read "The Wind up Bird Chronicle" and "Norwegian Wood", but we have more in our collection that I haven't read yet.
Then "Everything is Illuminated" by Jonathan Safran Foer.

More than enough to keep my occupied....