2008-10-23 A delight

This is one of those books you can just dip in and out of every time you're feeling a little stressed with urban life. Each chapter is devoted to a different aspect of the world of wood and trees. Deakin, a true English eccentric, owned woodlands in Suffolk and loved and nurtured them like his children.

In this book he travels the world from the new forests of Hampshire to the Australian outback in search of new woodland experiences and other people as obsessed by wood as he is. The pace is gentle, his love of nature and his ability to write with fluid beauty about it is a joy and even though I am a townie through and through I found myself longing to wander through the woods with him.

Sadly, this is never to be, so the book is as close as I'm ever likely to get. His atmospheric and loving prose is no poor second.