![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Everyone seems to have had something to say about oaks, in a way that I doubt they did for ash or elm. These work well and the author did a good job of weaving them into the text in a useful and functional way. Scattered through this book are examples of oak trees cropping up in literature and myth over the centuries and back further. Luckily, the Honeywood Oak has James Canton to speak for it. It is like an old soldier/airman/sailor, the last of its generation, once a stripling, having seen a lot of life and a lot of change, but rather reticent about talking about it. ![]() The Honywood Oak in Essex is around 800 years old (its reach back to the Magna Carta is quite a thought) and a remnant of a larger ancient oak woodland, almost all of which was felled for timber in the 1950s (and there are some gossipy tales about the motivation for that clearance). I enjoyed this book, more and more as I read through it, but, to be honest there is a little too much communing with trees and giving them a hug for my taste. I came across this book when it was reviewed by the incomparable John Riutta – it seems odd to learn of a book about an oak tree in Essex from a resident of Oregon, but there you go! And after my mention of it here on a Sunday I was most impressed that someone in Canongate had offered me a copy of the book before 10am on Monday morning. ![]()
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