With this astonishong collection of tree portraits, Thomas Packenham has produced a new kind of tree book. The trees are grouped according to their characteristics; roughly half are ancient native trees in the UK, while the rest are exotic newcomers from Europe.
Accolades
Shortlisted for BP Natural World Book Prize 1997.
Shortlisted for Natural World Book of the Year 1997.
Review
Thomas Pakenham, a distinguished historian of Africa, takes a new tack by writing an old-fashioned kind of book in Meetings with Remarkable Trees: a catalogue of trees of the British Isles. The last such book was published in 1826. In Meetings with Remarkable Trees Pakenham assembles a beautifully photographed gallery of 60-odd trees of Scotland, England and Ireland, and magnificent trees they are. One is a 600-year-old king oak that looms large over Charleville, Ireland; another is the yew tree that Wordsworth called the "pride of Lorton's vale"; still another is a sequoia brought from the United States and planted in a Herefordshire grove in 1851, where it has since flourished. Pakenham helpfully includes a map showing the locations of his scattered dramatis personae; you could make a fine tour retracing his steps and having a look for yourself. --Christine Buttery
Author Biography
Thomas Pakenham is the author of the critically acclaimed THE SCRAMBLE FOR AFRICA which won the W.H. Smith Award and the Alan Paton Award. He is also the author of THE BOER WAR, THE MOUNTAINS OF RASSELAS and THE YEAR OF LIBERTY. He lives in County Westmeath, Ireland and is chairman of the Irish Tree Society. He plants trees both for profit and ornament.
