The Wood for the Trees

September 5, 2016
In this intriguing volume, British paleontologist Fortey (Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms) charts the discoveries he made over the course of a year on the four acres of Oxfordshire land that he purchased in 2011. Fortey’s “inner naturalist needed to touch living animals and plants,” and he recounts those experiences by devoting a chapter to each month. He begins in April, following the changing seasons and collecting “the wood’s serendipitous treasures.” Fortey gives further structure to his narrative—and his treasure collection—through the construction of a cabinet of curiosities that he and his wife, Jackie, commissioned a woodworking neighbor to build out of one of their cherry trees. It would be different from the “systematic collection” he worked with for years at the Natural History Museum in London: each item would be a memento of encounters in their small patch of woods. As Fortey spends time observing and pondering, he becomes enraptured by the forest floor draped with bluebells. Imagining a continuum of individual and collective relationships that stretches back centuries, he duly charts his historical explorations of the land in parallel with his naturalistic ones. Focusing on his small world, Fortey effectively compiles “a biography of the wood” and reminds readers that stories can be found anywhere. Illus.

October 15, 2016
A distinguished British paleontologist offers a meticulously compiled "biography" of four acres of woodland in Oxfordshire, England.In 2011, Fortey (Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms: The Story of the Animals and Plants that Time Has Left Behind, 2012, etc.) became the owner of a parcel of land known as Grim's Dyke Wood. Eager to recapture the wonder of childhood, he soon began keeping a journal of the "diverse moods and changing seasons" of a place that, from the beginning, had felt like home. Fortey's more scientific aim was to understand how the natural world had come to be so varied. For a year, the author wrote a month-by-month account of the flora and fauna of Grim's Dyke Wood. The book begins in April, when "a sea of bluebells" and other flowers began to carpet the ground in colorful splendor. As spring moved into summer, pale, smooth-barked beeches created green leafy canopies that protected a revival of insect activity. The mixture of rain with spells of hot, dry weather during the summer months created an environment that was generous in its gifts of wild cherries but also proved temporarily inhospitable to both microorganisms and small mammals. Early fall brought with it the joys of truffle and mushroom hunting. The cooler temperatures and rains of November signaled the end of reproductive cycles for spiders and other animals as well as the proliferation of unique fungi. Despite the cold and snow of winter, holly and ivy persisted and even thrived, and men came to fell trees "vying for space" or too sick to live. February brought a proliferation of mosses, which heralded new cycles of growth about to begin again. Replete with photographs, recipes for homemade concoctions like ground elder soup and nettle fertilizer, and side stories of the people, past and present, who impacted the wood, this book will appeal to environmentalists or anyone interested in a richly tapestried natural history of south central England. An eloquent, eccentric, and precise nature memoir.

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October 15, 2016
The long view seems to be underappreciated in our breathless, social-media-driven times. It's one of the reasons why Fortey's (Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms, 2012) everyday discoveries about his small patch of woodland provide such unadulterated pleasure. Here, then, is an in-depth portrait of nature as it unfolds over the course of one year in the Chiltern Hills of Oxfordshire, England. There is no fixed agenda, just the sheer joy of solitude as Fortey observes the variety of carpet moths in June, of mushrooms in October. He also considers humanity's relationship with nature, researching the customs of people who lived on this land in centuries past. The discovery of a small trench launches an exploration of Grim's Dyke, a man-made construction already old by Saxon times. Fortey's brilliantly absorbing exercise in ecology and anthropology occasionally gets lost in the thickets, but it is nevertheless a tender ode to life's seasonal cycles and an essential reminder that one needn't travel far and wide to appreciate the many splendors of nature. A backyard will do just fine.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

July 1, 2016

As evidenced by a stack of awards, including the 2002 Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing About Science, Fortey can make science sing. His new work chronicles life on the four acres of woodland he purchased in the Chiltern Hills of Oxfordshire, England. The narrative is organized by month, with accounts, for instance, of cutting down trees in January and discovering golden mushrooms in September. Fortey recalls discovering a new species as well and finally presents his bit of Earth as nature in microcosm.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2016

This thorough natural history of Grim's Dyke Wood, Oxfordshire, presents a month-by-month account of the author's investigations and reflections. Fortey, a retired museum curator, treats each bug and bulb with great care, offering descriptive and colorful observations. He also examines the social and archaeological history of the wood, noting everything from the "long view" from the first wall to the modern footpath through the wood to the local pub. Each chapter is researched and cited in the notes. VERDICT This book will appeal to English historians, naturalists, archaeologists, and countryside travelers. Those who dream of traveling or living in the English countryside will be entranced by the detail and thought, while those with little interest in the topic will soon wish to take a trip across the pond to experience these sights for themselves.--Dawn Lowe-Wincentsen, Oregon Inst. of Technology, Portland

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.