Tu Bish­vat, the Jew­ish fes­ti­val for trees and their fruits, begins Sun­day night! In its hon­or, each year I like to fea­ture books that depict or impart new knowl­edge on the state­ly denizens of the world’s forests, groves, and orchards.

This year I was delight­ed to stum­ble upon Roger Deakin’s Wild­wood: A Jour­ney Through Trees, the last book writ­ten by Britain’s cel­e­brat­ed envi­ron­men­tal­ist and nature writer and doc­u­men­tar­i­an, pub­lished after his death in 2006. Rather than a per­son­al med­i­ta­tion on seclud­ed romps through the woods (ahem, Walden), Wild­wood explores how the peo­ple Deakin encoun­tered on his trav­els through Europe, Kaza­khstan, Aus­tralia, and his native Britain inter­act with wilder­ness around them, prob­ing ​“what lies behind man’s pro­found and endur­ing con­nec­tion with trees.”

Relat­ed Content:

• Book Cov­er of the Week: A Lit­er­ary For­est of Birch Trees
• Tu Bish­vat Read­ing List
• Inter­nal Dia­logue: A Tu Bish­vat Post in the Dead of Winter