Very interesting book. Brings back childhood memories.
I studied biology and somehow the greatest ecological disaster in American history was never taught in any class. These trees were amazing!
Disappointing -- too technical for my purposes. Did not expect a novel, but something else would have been nice.
Very nice book. Gives a great history of this long lost tree on which America was built.
I knew an old hill man in Kentucky who would talk about the chestnuts. The beauty of the forest in the spring, the quality of the wood, how people would raise hogs in the woods, and how all the trees died.
I have read a number of books in the genre of environmental science or nature that missed the mark for me when it came to explaining the science of the problem. This book was perfect.
I work in plant pathology which sparked my interest in this topic. This book is written by a non-scientist and it is very well researched and full of interesting stories of many of the people affected by, and dedicated to saving the American Chestnut.
As an avid amateur botanist, it is rare when an informative AND interesting book on plants is published. But this the case here.
As a biologist with an intense avocational interest in the American Chestnut, I planted nearly a hundred seeds on my property in PA way back in 1972. After 8 years of beautiful growth, the blight hit them.
Somehow over the last 100 years the American public has come to believe that the oak tree is THE all American tree, THE symbol of strength and longevity. Well, this book reminds us of what the American public has forgotten, that the oak tree once had a big brother, a tree that grew faster, grew taller, and lived longer.
In this beautifully written and engaging tale, author Susan Freinkel leads the reader on a fascinating journey through the world of the American Chestnut. Combining first-rate science reporting with lyrical writing, Freinkel is a writer to watch.
In Freinkel's eloquent and wry telling of the story of the American chestnut tree's demise and subsequent attempts to revive it, she raises compelling questions: what does it mean to lose a species, and what do our efforts to bring it back say about us? At the start, it made me want to find a lovely tree to curl up under and read all day.
Who even knew that the American Chestnut is on the verge of extinction due to a fungus blight? It is estimated that between three and four billion trees have been killed as a result.
I was recommended this book by my mother, an ardent gardener and lover of nature. From the start I was curious about it, and over the course of her reading it she shared many little tidbits here and there that only further piqued my interest.
This book, through the many primary sources gathered by the author, vividly describes the death of nearly all American chestnut trees in the face of an invasive species and the monumental scientific efforts by chestnut lovers to save them. At first I had some trouble getting into the book.
