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Shortlisted, Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Award
Warm, imaginative, and thoroughly original, this memoir intertwines the mysteries of trees with the defining moments in the life of novelist and essayist Theresa Kishkan. For Kishkan, trees are memory markers of life, and in this book she explores the presence of trees in nature, in culture and in her personal history. Naming each chapter for a particular tree — the Garry oak, the Ponderosa pine, the silver olive, the Plane tree, the Arbutus, and others — she draws on Pliny the Elder’s Natural History, John Evelyn’s Sylva, and strands of mythology from other classical and contemporary sources to blend scientific fact with natural history and the artifacts of human culture.
Never pedantic and always accessible, Mnemonic reveals — through one woman’s relationship with the natural world — how all of us have roots that intertwine with the broader world, tapping deep into the rich well of universal themes. In the words of Pliny the Elder, “Hence it is right to follow the natural order, to speak about trees before other things…”
Warm, imaginative, and thoroughly original, this unusual book intertwines the mysteries of trees with the defining moments of life. For Theresa Kishkan, trees are memory markers of life, and in Mnemonic, she explores the presence of trees in nature, in culture, and in her personal history.
Naming each chapter for a particular tree — the Garry oak, the Ponderosa pine, the silver olive, the plane tree, the arbutus, and others — she draws on Pliny the Elder’s Natural History, John Evelyn’s Sylva, and strands of mythology from other sources to blend scientific fact with natural history and the artifacts of human culture. In the words of Pliny the Elder, “Hence it is right to follow the natural order, to speak about trees before other things . . . “
248 Pages
8in * 6in * 0.619in
322gr
October 21, 2011
9780864926517
9780864927064 – EPUB
eng
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