In his most important book, Roger Deakin embarks on a journey into the fifth element - wood. The journey begins in the shade of the trees in his Suffolk garden, taking him through the forests of Britain, across Europe, and all the way to Central Asia and Australia. In search of the diverse functions and meanings of this material, which has shaped human history like no other renewable resource, he prunes trees in Suffolk, swims alongside walnut trees in the Haut-Languedoc, travels through the wild apple orchards of Kazakhstan, lives in wooden cabins and shanties, and forages for quandong plums with Aboriginal women in the Australian outback. In the shade of ancient trees, he meets forest dwellers, listens to their legends about the apple and walnut tree, the oak and ash, the cricket bat, and pagan village rituals. Deakin's literary exploration of our...