by Amy Stewart
First published 2024
Amy Stewart returns to botanical nonfiction after more than ten years with portraits of fifty individuals whose lives center on gathering trees. The book organizes these collectors into distinct groups. Community builders like Shyam Sunder Paliwal create movements that plant 111 trees for every girl born in his Rajasthan village. Seekers take their tree passion across continents and even into space. Visionaries include former poet laureate W.S. Merwin, who planted one tree daily for over thirty years until he transformed barren land into a palm sanctuary. Healers like Joe Hamilton plant trees on ancestral land inherited from his formerly enslaved great-grandfather. Stewart examines what compels people to collect something as massive and rooted as trees. She explores the Japanese forest bathing practice of shinrin-yoku, which reduces cortisol while boosting serotonin levels. The book includes watercolor portraits, tree collection histories, terminology guides, and tips for unauthorized forestry. Stewart delivers these stories with gentle humor and intimacy.
Genres: nature, environment, non-fiction, biography-memoir, 21st-century
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: healers, seekers, visionaries
Setting: Rajasthan, Japan
Period: 21st-century
336 pages · Hardcover · Random House