This engaging book is about beech trees, but it is also about numerous other issues, including global warming and the importance of trees in the landscape. Trees are the largest and most significant organisms on our planet.Beech trees reached Britain about 8,000 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 beechwood shavings.Author Richard Mabeydiscusses beech treesthrough autobiography, history, and natural historyin Europe as well as Britain. His beeches are full of character-"hectic, gale-sculpted, gnomic"-and he writes about the bluebells, orchids, fungi, deer, and badgers associated with them, as well as the narrativesthat have been toldabout trees and the imageswe makeof them. Many other kinds of tree are featured, and the portraits and celebrations of the beech always point toa larger s