Beechcombings

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Richard Mabey's new book is about beech trees - but also, of course, about numerous other issues, including global warming and the importance of trees in the landscape.

Beech trees reached Britain about 8000 years ago, and they were workhorses, not ornaments - fuel for Rome's glassworks; firewood for London; oars for the ships of Venice; raw material for furniture, cut and turned by 'bodgers' who lived like nomads among the trees in huts made of beech wood shavings. Mabey covers Europe as well as Britain, and autobiography as well as history and natural history. His beeches are characterful - 'hectic, gale-sculpted, gnomic' - and he writes about the bluebells, orchids, fungi, deer and badgers associated with them, as well as the narratives we tell about trees and the images we make of them.

Many other kinds of tree are featured, and the portraits and celebrations of the beech always point to the larger story.