Welcome to Litsy!

#Naturalitsy #Midwintersolace #Naturalitsyswap

Thank you so much @jenniferw88 for my lovely gifts. I adore Angela Harding's artwork, so thanks for the calendar. It's already in my journal. Ireally wanted a copy of The return to the light. The tree books are perfect. Nothing finer in this world than 🌳🌳 & 🦊🦊🦊

This book is a cultural and social history of trees. Perfect for literary types (Stafford is a Professor of English at Oxford). Not really for botanists. 🌲🌳🌴
Each chapter traces a particular tree's symbolic and historical meaning, the way it's been used, how its value or presence has changed. She is thorough, descriptive and informative. I really enjoyed it. 💚
Pictured is Monet's Weeping Willow, a tree associated with unrequited love. 💔

My parents and niece left this morning. We had a great week together...but it was busy, busy, busy. I didn't read much at all.
So today is a lazy day, dedicated to catching up (#MAANreadalong) and finishing up (two trees to go, the pine and the apple).

Look who popped up in my reading today! #HenryIV. Or more accurately a quote from Henry IV: "Peace puts forth her olive everywhere."
(That Shakespeare, he's everywhere!)
This book about ? ? ? is great. Each chapter provides a cultural history of a particular species e.g. oak, yew, olive. The olive is associated with peace and life, of course. Olive comes from Latin and actually translates as 'O live!'
#seductiveshakespeare @jenniferw88

Next up. I'm on a little nature writing kick these days...🌳🌳

Great read, but mostly British trees. Poetry, history, folkore and beautiful illustrations like this woodcut.

Anyone recommend anything on trees outside the UK?

I had never made the connection between birch tree and 'birching' or caning someone before.

Yew trees may pre-date the churches where they stand: cherry trees in Washington were first a gift from the Japanese state...

The black and white illustrations in this book are stunning. My much-dropped phone camera can't do them justice.

A really interesting exploration of the history, uses, and symbolism of a variety of trees. After reading, I'm even more aware of the ways that trees oversee our lives, mark our passing, and inform our stories.

I didn't think I needed a history of trees in culture, but then this cover happened

Anyone else get sad when you realize that you can never read all of the books? I've been browsing the fall catalogs. So many good books and my backlist TBR is also long. Anya feels my pain.