Book description
In 1987, the greatest English storm for three centuries laid flat
fifteen million trees across southern England and devastated a nation
of tree-lovers. The storm marked a turning point in our perception of
trees and a dawning realisation that they have lives of their own,
beyond the roles and images we press on them.
In Beechcombings Richard Mabey traces the long history of the
beech tree throughout Europe, writing about the bluebells, orchids,
fungi, deer and badgers associated with them, the narratives we tell
about trees and the images we make of them. It is an engrossing,
exciting, poetical and profound book that will stimulate debate about
man's relationship with nature and enchant the reader.
Among Richard Mabey's acclaimed publications are Food for Free
(his first book and never out of print), Gilbert
White (Whitbread Biography of the Year) and the ground-breaking
bestseller Flora Britannica, which won the British Book Awards'
Illustrated Book of the Year and the Botanical Society of the British
Isles' President's Award and was runner-up for the BP Natural World
Book Prize. He collaborated on Birds Britannica (which was his
idea) and his most recent book, Nature Cure, described as 'A
brilliant, candid and heartfelt memoir', had such wide appeal that it
was shortlisted for no fewer than four prestigious prizes: the
Whitbread Biography, the J. R. Ackerley for autobiography, Mind
(for its investigation into depression) and the Ondaatje for the
evocation of the spirit of place.
Richard Mabey was born and brought up among the beech woods of the
Chilterns, and now lives in Norfolk.
