Arboreal

Bringing together the finest and best-known names in contemporary writing, a new anthology that explores the many strands of what woodlands mean to us. A landmark publication, it will appeal widely to many readers.

There was public outcry in 2010 when the Conservative Government announced plans to sell much of the Public Forest, consisting of some 635,000-acres and including royal forests and ancient woods. Such a widespread, emotional response lead to a Government U-turn. It also tells us just how important woodlands still are too us, even if they are no longer part of our ever-busy twenty-first century lives. No other landscape matches the complexity and variety of life in a woodland, both above and below ground. They are given names on maps, shape our language, and feed our imagination.

Common Ground and Little Toller plan to revive public interest in woodlands with this anthology, combining essays from a variety of contributors – novelists, botanists, artists, architects, foresters – to explore why these landscapes still matter and mean so much.

Authors: Ali Smith, Simon Armitage, Simon Leatherdale, Alan Garner, Alec Finlay, David Nash, Fiona Stafford, Sara Maitland, George Peterken, Helen Dunmore, Jen Hadfield, Philip Marsden, Nina Lyon, Paul Kingsnorth, Paul Evans, Richard Skelton, Tobias Jones, Germaine Greer, Fiona Reynolds, Jay Griffiths, Richard Mabey, Peter Marren, Philip Hoare, Deborah Wilenski, Jim Crumley, Rob Penn, Neil Sinden, Piers Taylor, Madeleine Bunting, Kathleen Jamie, William Boyd, Gabriel Hemery, Tim Dee, Evie Wyld, Will Ashon, Seán Lysaght, Robin Walter

Edited by Adrian Cooper