TreeNotes: A Year in the Company of Trees by Nalini Nadkarni
Published: February 2025
Summary from Goodreads:
From an esteemed National Geographic explorer and forest ecologist, a charming collection of thought-provoking essays exploring the meaning of trees in our lives.
Telephone poles, baseball bats, railroad ties. Peaches, nutmeg, and vanilla. The more you look, the more you realize: Our world depends on products made from trees. In this sweet book, forest ecologist Nalini Nadkarni takes you on a worldwide journey to learn more about trees—their variety, their usefulness, their beauty, and their importance, not only to human culture, but to the entire natural world.
Confession:
If you are at all familiar with NPR’s (National Public Radio) BirdNotes, a weekly two minute segment all about birds, then you will have an idea what this book is like. TreeNotes is also aired on NPR, but I’m not sure if it is as widely broadcasted. I certainly have never run across it, although I will admit I don’t listen to NPR all that much. But luckily I did learn that both BirdNotes and TreeNotes can be found as podcasts! I will be sure to check out both of these and add them to my daily listening time.
In this book you will find very short (two pages) stories about trees and how they touch human lives. I really enjoyed reading many of these little vignettes and I learned a couple of things from many of them. For instance, the willow, which has been long known for it’s herbal remedy for aches and pains, helped to develop the active ingredient in aspirin and is still used to today. Also, I found it interesting that people prefer to shop in areas where there are lots of trees. Finally, the holly and evergreen boughs used to make your christmas wreath, probably came from the Pacific Northwest.
The book is split into sections that are titled for the seasons. It was a nice way to break up the stories, although some of them didn’t seem to particularly relate to any given season. The writing was very relatable and for the most part interesting. The book could have used some illustrations. It would have been nice to see the leaves or the bark of some of these trees that were talked about. But other than that I enjoyed the format and the writing.
If you want a quick, light nonfiction book about trees, this is a book you might want to pick up. If you enjoy podcasts certainly give the TreeNotes podcast a listen. If you are more into birds, check out BirdNotes Daily. And while you are checking these podcasts out, maybe donate a little money to PBS and NPR . They could use it.
Confessions of a Serial Reader 
This sounds like a nice book to dip in and out of. A shame about the lack of illustrations as it’s always nice to see what the trees, bark etc look like to give you a better insight.
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