Any Stewart

Nonfiction 2024 | 301 pages

This is a breathtaking book!  Amy Stewart discovered a community of tree collectors.  These are people who, typically, select a tree, say maples, or a characteristic, say tropical trees, or a mission, say, to beautify neighborhoods that have no trees, and collect every species they can, rare and common, and plant, nurture, and grow them on their land, or in pots.  She interviewed and visited 50 such collectors throughout the world (the number of countries represented in her sample is amazing). 

I present you with three of the tree collectors.  Januez Radecki is a Polish arboreal therapist who encourages the residents of the elder care home where he works to plant, prune, weed and water trees, prodding them with purpose, mission, fresh air, and exercise.  Joe Hamilton cultivates pines on land passed down to him from his great-grandfather, once a slave, saving the trees and history for future generations. Reagan Wytsalucy is replanting peach trees in the Canyon de Chelly region of Arizona.  Many died during the 1864 Long Walk when the US Army forced Navajo off their lands in New Mexico and Arizona.  Peach orchards, a source of food and trade among the Navajo people, were intentionally destroyed after the Long Walk to starve any Navajo who survived. Reagan’s work introduces culture, truth, and history to her Native communities.

You will learn about a subject you likely did not know much about and did not know what you did not know.  Her three pages on each tree collector are all fascinating, educational, and interesting.

I stopped buying books about a dozen years ago, unless there is something I need and cannot find at my library.  If you are still buying books, this (hardcover) should be in your shopping cart, because the additional bonus is the author is also a watercolor artist, and her paintings are on about two out of every three pages.  Her portraits of the tree collectors themselves communicate their sense of adventure, learning, uniqueness, and passion.

I highly recommend this book. Mary, you always give me good ideas of books to read, but this suggestion is extraordinary!  I thank you, my long-time friend.

February 2026